A Proposed System-Based Subsidy Approach for Integrated Public Transport in South African Metropolitan Areas

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The current subsidy system, designed to make South Africa's public transport moreaffordable, has instead contributed to a worsening of the existent neglected state of affairs.Although subsidy policies are in place, misdirected allocation renders them mostlyineffective. The implementation of the new integrated public transport systems formetropolitan areas affords an opportunity to adopt a broad spectrum approach and initiate aredesigned and improved subsidy system.The purpose of this study is to assess the South African urban public transport industry withthe aim of finding by means of a system-based process a subsidy approach that willovercome the remaining inequalities of the past. This study will consequently evaluatedifferent subsidy theories and determine which one(s) will be best suited to the demands of aspecific period. The final objective is to design a product which offers government a systembasedprocess that will help it determine, every few years, whether the subsidy regime beingapplied at that juncture is still relevant to the requirements of the market and/or what (new)approach is necessary to achieve social and economic wellbeing.Commuter transport in South Africa is currently in a transition phase where new publictransport infrastructure is being implemented in the metropolitan cities. The currenteconomic recession (making people's demand more elastic to prices) present a good time toconduct the system-based process necessary for transition of the public transport systemand determine an optimal subsidy approach for the new system.The first step in the system-based process was to determine the scope of work and theoverall objectives that should be reached. The main public transport shortcomings are thelack of accessibility to affordable transport for the poor and increasing private transportownership by the rich, which increases congestion and forms the second step of the systembasedprocess. The third step stated the action plan of strategies on how the objectivescould be reached. These three steps also form the basic measurement criteria against whichthe different subsidy approaches needed to be tested.The fourth step in the system-based process to a better subsidy approach was to evaluatedifferent theoretical subsidy approaches. The review of different subsidy approaches hasindicated that some approaches work better than others, but an optimal subsidy system isalmost never found.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University