Accessibility and Social Welfare: A study of the City of Johannesburg

Abstract

Within the corpus of accessibility measures is the Net Wage After Commute which describes the potential wage earnable less the transport costs incurred to commute to work from a particular location. This paper explores the time-series developments of accessibility, using this poverty-relevant metric, in low-income residential areas of the City of Johannesburg, biennially from 2009 to 2013 when accessibility patterns were altered as a result of major investments in the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Furthermore, a difference-in-differences approach was adopted to explore the effects of access to the BRT on the well-being of lower-income households, investigating the premise that transport related benefits brought about by such investments translate to social welfare improvements. The results suggest that significant time-series changes in accessibility patterns are driven by affordability against the backdrop of decentralisation, particularly for low-income areas in the peripheries of the city. The difference-in-differences model reveals that the BRT did not improve the well-being of residents, however, likely users of the service are better off in terms of well-being than non-users. This suggests that that BRT in Johannesburg is beneficial as a transport project, but not as a general urban intervention able to improve the overall amenity of served communities.