Chapter 5 Impact of the Intervention on Learner Perceptions and Travel Behaviour
5.2 The Cost of Travel to School
Table 8 Travel Time by Percentages of Learners that Live More than 5 Kilometres from School and Travel by Motorised Transport
Reported Travel Learners that Learners in Learners in Time to School Walk to School School A that School B that
Use Motorised Use Motorised
Tran~ort Transport
Under 30 minutes 16.5 21 25
30 minutes- 1 hour 43.3 41.9 47.2
1-2 hours 23.7 22.6 19.4
2-3 hours 8.2 14.5 5.6
Over 3 hours 8.2 --- 2.8
N 97 64 39
The perception of staff members regarding the amount of time spent by learners travelling to school supports this conclusion. One teacher, in particular, suggested that the students in School A generally do not have to walk for several hours to get to school (Interview with Teacher 2A: February 7, 2006). While the student
questionnaires indicate that a small percentage of learners in the school do travel for this amount of time, the critical conclusion drawn from this analysis is that the students that are able to make use of private cars, buses and taxis generally do not
travel for excessive amounts of time to get to school.
On the whole, then, this analysis supports the strong probability that the intervention has impacted on the travel times of learners that live farther away from School A. Specifically, those students that live more than 10 kilometres away and those that utilise public transport for some portion of their journey (either as a primary or secondary mode) demonstrate an observable reduction in the amount of time required to reach the school. Although a comparable reduction in the travel time to School B is observable for learners travelling in private cars, not enough is known about this particular mode of transport, at this point, to make an accurate comparison.
general, however, the appropriate treatment of the monetary cost of transport as a component of school accessibility in rural and peri-urban areas is slightly ambiguous.
In areas, for instance, where the majority of learners walk to school, the monetary cost of transport is obviously low. Conversely, the amount of time spent travelling to school in these areas might be relatively high, and the "cost" is then carried by the
learners.
Survey data from primary and secondary school learners is not able to reliably uncover the individual cost-benefit analyses conducted by learners as they make their travel decisions. Conventional travel surveys distributed to learners are also not able to contribute towards the creation of quantitative indicators such as the percentage of household income spent on transport to school. Despite these obstacles, the impact of the intervention on the cost of transport to school is a relevant factor in the outcome of this study as one component of the intervention employed by School A is a reduction in taxi fares for learners. As such, the approach of this section is to provide a
distributional analysis of the reported cost of travel to each school by travel mode and by distance travelled.
5.2.1 Cost of travel to school and the effect of modal choice
On the whole, the learners that attend School A spend a greater amount of money on travel to school. This finding is unsurprising because a modal analysis has already revealed that the learners in this school are able to make use of public
transport to a much greater extent than their peers in School B.
Table 9 Cost of Trip to School by Percentages of Learners in School A and SchoolB
Cost of Travel to School School A School B
Less than R2 34.6 36.1
R2-R5 41.0 61.1
R6-RI0 14.1 ---
Rll-R20 3.8 ---
Over R20 6.4 2.8
N 78 36
T-test 1.941 p=.055
As Table 9 shows, of the learners that reported paying some sort of fare for the trip to school, the majority from both schools pay R5 or less per trip. The variance in the distribution of reported travel costs between schools is not significant as demonstrated by the t-test (1.941). A cross-tabulation between travel mode and cost reveals that the majority of learners that travel to school in a private car report paying a fee of some sort. Of all the learners in the sample, 87% of those that travel in cars as a primary mode reported paying a fare, while 51 % of those using the car as a secondary mode report paying a fare. This finding provides more insight into the analysis of this travel mode and suggests that it is some sort of profit-based service operating in the area, rather than a service provided by a family member.
An analysis comparing costs for those learners that make use of motorised transport for some part of their journey allows for a deeper understanding of the impact of School A's transport intervention. Table 10 displays the respective percentages of learners and the amount that they pay for motorised transport in each school. As the data suggest, the majority of the learners in the beneficiary school that choose to pay for transport are able to travel to school for less than R5 (median is between R2-R5).
Table 10 Cost of Travel to School by Percentages of Learners that Use Motorised Transport
Cost of Travel to School School A School B
Nothing 9.6 56.8
Less than R2 31.5 18.2
R2-RS 32.9 25
R6-RI0 15.1 ---
Rll-R20 4.1 ---
OverR20 6.8 4.3
N 73 44
Similarly, a very small percentage of bus and taxi users in the school reported paying more than RIO per journey. While a counterfactual analysis of public transport costs is not possible due to the extremely low utilisation of public transport by learners in School B, several conclusions can be drawn about the corresponding situation in this school.
The first conclusion, drawn from the modal analysis in Chapter 4, is that the use of the private car is more common in School B and that, again, it is not always a free service provided by the friends and families of learners. Of those learners in the counterfactual school, for instance, that travel by car as a primary mode, 67% pay between Rl and R5 per trip. Similarly, of the learners in this school that use the private car as a secondary travel mode, approximately 40% pay this same amount for the service. Thus, within the modal category of "private car", it is evident that more than one type of service is provided to learners. A second conclusion regarding the cost of transport to School B is that it is linked to the choice of travel mode. The principal of the school expressed that the use of private vans and cars is common because there are no other affordable options and that learners must either walk to school or make use of these private initiatives when possible (Interview with Principal B: December 5,2005). An analysis of the safety aspects of this form of transport will be conducted later in the chapter.
On the whole, this section has demonstrated that the learners from School A spend slightly more on travel to school, but that the majority pay R5 or less per journey. The significance of these findings is that more students in School A choose to pay the fares for buses and taxis (rather than walk or travel in private cars) to get to school than their counterparts in School B. Most importantly, the analysis of
motorised transport and travel costs has suggested that the private car is being used by learners from School B, in some cases, as a more affordable travel substitute for buses and taxis.
5.2.2 Cost of travel to school and distance
The relationship between the distance travelled to school and the cost of transport was expected to be an important factor in the decision to use public transport by the learners in both schools. As such, this section will address the reported costs of travel to school by learners categorised according to the distances they live from school. Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of fares paid by learners that report living more than 5 kilometres from school. As the data suggest, a greater percentage of learners in School A are paying for transport at this distance.
Figure 4 Cost of Travel for Percentages of Learners that Travel More than 5 Kilometres (N=128)
70 60
50 40 30 20 10
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Cost of Travel
DSchool A
• School B
Figure 5 Cost of Travel for Percentages of Learners that Travel More than 10 Kilometres (N=61)
80 70 60
50 40 30 20 10
o
71
DSchool A
• School B
Significantly, the majority of the learners in School A and all of the learners in School B pay less than RlO to travel this distance. Figure 5 makes the same calculation with the number of students that report living more than 10 kilometres from their school.
Once again, the evidence describing the cost of transport to learners supports the conclusion that public transport is utilised by a greater number and percentage of learners in School A. The main assumption underlying this analysis is that these learners (and their parents) make individual cost-benefit analyses and elect to spend the amounts of money displayed above instead of walking the entire distance to school.
While causality cannot easily be determined in a study of this size, it is
relatively safe to argue that the fact that the majority of students in School A living far from school spend R5 or less on transport influences the decision of those learners to use public transport. Conversely, it may be assumed that the decision by all of the learners in School B that live more than 10 kilometres from the school to either walk or pay to ride in a private car is an indication of the lack of affordability of public transport for learners in that school.
One other plausible explanation is that the intervention increases the
catchment area of School A and encourages learners from farther away to attend the school. Similarly, this analysis suggests that the intervention effectively reduces the cost per kilometre for travel to School A and motivates learners and their families to make use of public transport. Thus, public transport in the form of buses and taxis becomes an affordable option for a greater number of learners. This claim, then, intuitively leads to an interest in other potential benefits of public transport use.