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Does public transport accessibility enhance subjective well-being? A study of the City of Johannesburg

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  • Lionjanga, Nahungu
  • Venter, Christo

Abstract

The Net Wage After Commute describes the potential wage earnable less the transport costs incurred to commute to work from a particular location. This paper explores the time-series development of accessibility, using this poverty-relevant metric, in low-income residential areas of Johannesburg, biennially from 2009 to 2013 when accessibility patterns were altered as a result of investment in the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. The results suggest that significant changes in accessibility are driven by improved affordability rather than spatial coverage enhancements, which were very marginal in this case. A difference-in-differences approach is adopted to explore the effects of access to the BRT on the subjective well-being of lower-income households. The model fails to find evidence that the additional accessibility provided by the BRT improves the general sense of well-being in the communities it serves. There is evidence however of well-being improvements among the narrower cohort of actual users of BRT, especially in terms of their satisfaction with their amount of free time. This suggests that the BRT in Johannesburg is beneficial as a transport project, but not yet as a general urban intervention able to leverage wider improvements in life satisfaction within served communities.

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  • Lionjanga, Nahungu & Venter, Christo, 2018. "Does public transport accessibility enhance subjective well-being? A study of the City of Johannesburg," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 523-535.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:retrec:v:69:y:2018:i:c:p:523-535
    DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2018.07.011
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    2. Herszenhut, Daniel & Pereira, Rafael H. M. & da Silva Portugal, Licinio & de Sousa Oliveira, Matheus Henrique, 2021. "The impact of transit monetary costs on transport equity analyses," OSF Preprints e3tac, Center for Open Science.
    3. Herszenhut, Daniel & Pereira, Rafael H.M. & Portugal, Licinio da Silva & Oliveira, Matheus Henrique de Sousa, 2022. "The impact of transit monetary costs on transport inequality," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
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    5. Elżbieta Szaruga & Bartosz Pilecki & Marta Sidorkiewicz, 2023. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Transport Accessibility, and Accommodation Accessibility on the Energy Intensity of Public Tourist Transport," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-27, October.
    6. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Daniels, Chux & AbdulRafiu, Abbas, 2022. "Transitioning to electrified, automated and shared mobility in an African context: A comparative review of Johannesburg, Kigali, Lagos and Nairobi," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Benevenuto, Rodolfo & Caulfield, Brian, 2022. "Examining the socioeconomic outcomes of transport interventions in the Global South," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 56-66.
    8. Suchi Kapoor Malhotra & Howard White & Nina Ashley O. Dela Cruz & Ashrita Saran & John Eyers & Denny John & Ella Beveridge & Nina Blöndal, 2021. "Studies of the effectiveness of transport sector interventions in low‐ and middle‐income countries: An evidence and gap map," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Accessibility; Time-series analysis; Well-being; Quality of life; Johannesburg; Public transport; Bus rapid transit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables

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