[sustran] transport and the asian econ. debacle

[Paul Barter]

Many thanks to Bambang Susantono for his interesting insights on the
situation in Jakarta.

I just want to comment on one of the things Bambang says which gave a
slightly misleading impression. Sorry if this is off the original topic.

Walter Hook said:
>> In Jakarta, most people are dependent on public transit, a lot of which
>>  is in private hands.  No question they are going to be hit by increased
>>  oil prices. Food prices etc. are also rising.

Bambang Susantono replied:
>Only about 50 % of people use public transit. See the following study:
                    ==========
>JMATS, 1972-- 61 % public transport, 39 % cars
>ARSDS, 1985-- 57 % public transport, 43 % cars
>JMTSS, 1992-- 49.1 % public transport, 50.9 % cars

It is misleading to slip from talking about percentages of trips to taking
about percentages of people.   Saying that 51 % of motorised TRIPS are by
private modes (cars+ motorcycles) DOES NOT MEAN 51% of PEOPLE are using
private modes.   The main reason for this is that people with private
vehicles tend to make many more motorised trips per person than those with
no private vehicles.  So a disproportionate number of the trips counted in
modal split figures (such as the ones quoted by Bambang ) are trips that
are made by people who own private vehicles (who tend to be the higher
income people). Mode share figures are counting TRIPS not PEOPLE  - the
percentage of people who actually have access to private vehiclce tends to
be lower than the number of trips made by private transport.

I wanted to give a specific example proving that car and motorcycle owners
in some city make more motorised trips than non-vehicle owners but I can't
seem to find such a report on my shelf right now.  Next best is to look at
income groups (which correlates closely with vehicle ownership within a
city).  The ARSDS study of Jakarta by JICA that Bambang quoted, shows that
in 1985:
"Low income"  people who were 47.5 % of the sample:  took only 0.61
motorised trips per day (0.20 private and 0.41 public) on average.  On the
other hand, those with lower-middle, upper-middle, or high incomes
(altogether 52.5 percent of the sample)  took 1.11 motorised trips per day
on average (0.63 private and 0.48 public).  This implies that the richer
52.5 % of the population took  67% of all motorised trips and the poorer
47.5% of the population had only 33 % of all motorised trips.     (looking
at vehicle owners versus non-vehicle owners would probably be even more
striking).

So the modal split figure is misleading if you want to talk about people
rather than trips. Motorised modal split figures always underestimate the
number of people who cannot rely on private transport modes (even in rich
cities).

Sorry if I have laboured the point. But I see this confusion often and
wanted to clear it up, if possible. I think it is a somewhat insidious way
that public transport can inadvertently be trivialised.

Best wishes,
Paul Barter
SUSTRAN Secretariat and researcher on Asian urban transport patterns.