Transportation in Society

1
Transportation in Society

• Introduction
• Economic aspects
• Political aspects
• Social aspects
• Environmental aspects

2
Introduction (1)

• Need for transport
• To move passengers, goods or services
• To improve value or utility of persons, goods, or
  services
• Because not all places are equally well endowed
  with resources
• Transport is a derived demand

• Initial impact of transport
• No longer dependent only on local resources and
  output
• Mixing with other people exchange of ideas
  commodities
• Increase in community size
• Division of labour
• Specialisation of skills
• Surplus improved standard of living

3
Introduction (2)

• Transport and development
• Transport is a pre-requisite
• But it doesnt guarantee development
• Could precede or follow development
• Objectives of transport
• The movement of persons, goods and services
  safely to the correct destination, at the correct
  time and the correct price. Parameters need to be
  specified or defined.

• What is the correct?

4
Economic aspects(1)

• Costs Fixed costs Variable costs

TOTAL
COST
VARIABLE
FIXED
DISTANCE
5
Economic aspects(2)

• Effect of change in transport technology and cost

COST
CB1
CA1
CA2
CB2
Production cost A
Production cost B
MARKET
Producer B
Producer A
6
Economic aspects(3)

• Economies of scale
• Fixed and variable cost
• Cost per item
• Economies of scale
• High fixed costs

• EXAMPLE
• Total cost 50 3x30/x (Rands) (xnumber of
  items)
• Calculate
• The cost to transport 100 items
• The cost/item when transporting 100, 200, 500
  and 1000 items
• The number of items at which the transport
  cost/item is reduced by R0,02 if an additional
  item is transported

7
Economic aspects(4)

• Public/private relationship
• Public -gt Public
• (Initiated by the private sector and then taken
  over by the public sector)
• Public monopoly set price and standards no
  incentive to optimise services
• Free competition
• Transport is perishable
• Commercialisation/
• privatisation
• Joint ventures

• Public transport subsidies
• Approx. R3 billion/year
• Consumer pays (directly) less than it costs
• Reasons Past subsidies
• To compensate for settlement policies
• To ensure adequate inexpensive labour pool
• Reasons Subsidies now
• To redistribute wealth
• Meet basic mobility needs
• To improve the use and efficiency of the PT
  system

8
Economic aspects(4)

• Public Transport Subsidies (Cont.)
• Other reasons for subsidies
• To alleviate extreme poverty and hardship (while
  minimising subsidy bill)
• Target specific groups
• Correcting the effects of market forces
• To benefit from the economies of scale

• Applying transport subsidies to
• Be employed with other policies to reduce the
  subsidy bill
• Be aimed at the poor and disadvantaged
• Result in affordable transport
• For the authority
• For the passenger
• Be targeted (Mode, Low income, Distant from
  destination, Non-work trips as well?)

9
Political aspects

• Governments need transport
• For national cohesion/integration
• To protect boarders
• To quell internal strife
• To transmit decisions
• To enforce laws/decisions
• To support political agendas
• To facilitate development
• Open up areas
• Create competitive advantage

• Transport needs government
• To fund infrastructure
• To fund operations
• To facilitate implementation
• Reduce red tape
• To support innovation
• To foster intellectual growth
• Government can be non-supportive or even negative

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Social aspects (1)

• Positive social impact
• Increased range for personal interaction
• Friction of distance
• Broader range of ideas/ cultures
• Wider involvement of people
• Stages of urban access
• Walking and animal riding
• Electric street car
• Motor car on lower order streets
• Freeway

• The motor car
• (See next slide)
• The airplane
• The global village

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Social aspects (2)

• Impact of the motor car ()
• Increased individual spatial freedom
• Status- adulthood, prosperity, etc..
• Impact of the motor car (-)
• Lower density residential development
• Longer travel distances
• Wider social scale of contacts
• Destruction of local community
• Reduced public transport usage

• Separation of activities in specialised areas
• Reduction of pedestrian facilities and
  environment
• Population without a car
• Access or ownership
• The young, aged, disabled and poor

CAR OWNERSHIP
(Cars/1000 population)
471
white
coloured
60
asian
180
black
15
urban-informal
50
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Social aspects (3)

• Impact of a new road
• (Increasing demand for roads)
• Easiest through areas of lowest cost and
  political resistance

• Barriers to pedestrians
• Links decline
• Social fabric destroyed
• Amenity decline
• Area declines the more mobile move, the others
  remain

• Relocation of residents
• Institutions move
• Land use changes
• Loss in residential quality

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Social aspects (4)

• Freeways create worse impacts

14
Social aspects (5)

• Argument against new roads
• Road brings no benefit it only brings more
  congestion (Congestion spiral)
• But
• Roads do not serve only to solve congestion
• Additional road space increases capacity for
  vehicle traffic
• Hence number of persons who can benefit from
  travel opportunity
• Economic benefit of additional opportunity

• Social impact of public transport (public good
  from private and public transport)
• Shift in funding away from roads
• Non-user funding of PT
• Public transport is less polluting
• Opportunities for those without access to a
  private vehicle e.g. the poor, young, old and
  disabled.
• A question of equity
• Income, age, spatial location

15
Social aspects (6)

• Social directions for transport planning
• Transport has benefited society, but not equally
• Humanisation
• Human needs
• Non-mobility and social impact
• Professional role and capability (Some humility)
• Socialisation
• Must contribute to non-transport ends
• Integrated with other areas of planning
• Integrate the local community

• Planning with community
• Find solutions to their problems
• Politicisation
• Explicit subjective choices
• Alternatives showing political priorities
• Planning is technical and political
• Consequences of scenarios for decision makers
• Within limits
• Taming traffic and planners
• Transport management or more infrastructure
• (How complete is our transport system?)

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Environmental aspects (1)

• Visual impact
• Water quality
• Urban climate change

• Negative impacts of roads
• Soil loss
• Vegetation change

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Environmental aspects (2)

• Definition of pollution
• undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or
  biological characteristics of our air, land, and
  water that may or will harmfully affect human
  life or that of any other desirable species, or
  industrial process, living conditions or cultural
  assets, or may or will waste or deteriorate our
  natural resources (Shutz)

• Noise pollution
• dBA
• Due to transport, industry, people
• Affects of noise
• Sleep interference
• Speech interference
• Annoyance
• Hearing impairment
• Guidelines do exist
• Attenuation measures
• Airports and flight paths
• Vibration

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Environmental aspects (3)

• Air pollution
• Not always perceived
• Sulphur oxides - human respiration
• Carbon monoxide - most lethal
• Lead - circulation system
• Photochemical smog
• Sulphur, dust, rubber, asbestos, lead
• (In the USA 60 of pollutants
• is transport related)

• Contribution to pollution
• Other impacts
• Heat island tar and paved areas
• Hydrological cycle less penetration and more run
  off
• Flora and fauna
• Scarring the landscape
• Roads, parking, signage

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Environmental aspects (4) IEM

• Integrated environmental management
• to ensure that the (bio-physical and
  socio-economic) environmental consequences are
  understood and considered in the planning
  process
• Principles
• Informed decision making
• Accountability for information
• Accountability for decisions
• Broad meaning of term environment

• Open participatory process
• Consultation with interested and affected parties
  (IAP)
• Consider alternative options
• Mitigate negative impacts and enhance benefits
• Social benefits must exceed social costs
• Individual rights
• Principles applied from cradle to grave
• Specialist input to decision making

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Environmental aspects (5)
No formal assessment
Approved
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Environmental aspects (6) IEM

• Process
• Develop proposals
• Notify neighbours and interested and affected
  parties
• Establish policy, legal and admin requirements
  and purpose of proposal
• Consider IEM requirements
• Consult authorities, interested and affected
  parties

• Identify alternatives
• Identify issues, opportunities and constraints
• Consider mitigatory options
• Consider management plan option

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Environmental aspects (7) IEM

• Impact assessment
• Scoping - the extent of the investigation
• Investigation

• Report
• Admin info project and team and terms of
  reference
• Approach adopted, assumption s and limitations
• Compliance with admin, legal and policy
  requirements
• Review of proposal and alternatives
  environmental impacts
• Evaluation
• Statement on inadequate or missing information
• Conclusion and recommendation

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Environmental aspects (8) IEM

• Initial assessment
• Significant impact on?
• Physical characteristics
• Ecological characteristics
• Land use and landscape
• Cultural resources
• Socio-economic
• Infrastructure services
• Social and community facilities
• Pollution levels
• Risk and hazard
• Health and safety
• Cumulative effects

• Can project be modified?
• How well will the project
• Be efficient in terms of all social costs?
• Be fair to all groups and individuals?
• Be sustainable
• Without assessment?