Chapter 5 Impact of the Intervention on Learner Perceptions and Travel Behaviour
5.4 Reported Problems with Learner Travel
Table 13 Reported Travel Problems by Percentage of Primary User Group in School A and B
Reported Walking Car Bus Taxi
Problem A B A B A B A B
Expensive 9.2 8,9 9.1 8.3 8.3
Unsafe 18.4 45.5 18.2 50 41.7 25
Time 39.5 31.7 45.5 8.3 33.3
Wait 6.6 7.3 9.1 8.3 16.7
Unreliable 6.6 .8
Far from 19.7 5.7 18.2 50 33.3 16.7 Home
N 85 135 11 6 12 2 13 2
The comparison between the two schools in this table suggests that the majority of learners that walk in each school cite safety and time as the two biggest problems with travel to school. Notably, the time taken to get to school is the biggest complaint by walkers in School A while safety is the main concern for the same group in School B.
The findings presented in this table also support the conclusion that travelling in a private car to School B is not a safe travel mode. Another interesting finding is that the users of buses in School A described safety as the biggest problem with that mode of travel and the distance that the bus travels near their home as the second biggest complaint. This finding, however, might be explained by the relatively small number of bus users (N=12).
The users of taxis, on the other hand, indicated that a long travel time is the single biggest problem with that mode. Significantly, a very small percentage of public transport users in School A indicated that the trip to school is too expensive.
While a direct comparison between bus and taxi users in the two schools is not possible, the learners have indicated that time and safety are the main concerns, overall, with their modes of travel to school. Although it is not possible to determine how the learners from School A would have responded prior to the intervention, it may be speculated, based on the perceptions of the learners in both schools, that the learners from the beneficiary school are choosing public transport (especially taxis)
instead of walking or riding in private cars because it is safer and relatively affordable. This conclusion is only speculation at this point, but it does indicate a viable direction for future research as the factors that contribute towards modal decision making are currently not known. .
A final analysis of learner perceptions of transport and travel to school categorised by the distances that they live from their respective school reveals the general travel problems that affect learners in the two schools. The data presented in the table below represent the frequencies of responses to the question asking students to rank the general transport problems affecting their trip to school (and the travel choices that they make). Those learners that live more than 10 kilometres from the two schools, for example, ranked problems with travel slightly differently.
Table 14 Reported Travel Problems for Percentages of Learners that Live More than 10 Kilometres from School
Highest Ranked Problems School A School B
Expensive 21.6 5.3
Unsafe 16.2 36.8
Takes too much time 37.8 31.6
Long wait 16.2 5.3
Unreliable 2.7 ---
Doesn't come near the 5.4 15.8
learner's home
N 42 19
Table 14 demonstrates that the students travelling the greatest distances to School A rank the time travelled as the most significant problem associated with travel to school. An explanation for the high number of students that selected this problem might come from the observation that 16.2% of the learners in this group expressed that the time spent waiting for transport is too long. The students living farthest from School B also ranked travel time as a significant problem, but the majority felt that safety is the largest problem associated with travel to this school.
A brief analysis of the perceptions of learners, then, has indicated that travel time and safety are the two biggest complaints about travel to both schools overall and across modal and distance groups. As such, the ability of the transport intervention in School A to reduce the travel time for students travelling long distances and the
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relative safety of public transport over walking and travelling in a private car suggested by this study indicates the significant impact of the intervention on both learner travel patterns and on the perceptions of learners.
In light of the suggested associations between the use of public transport, the distances travelled to school and the perceived safety of the journey to school, an attempt has been made to model the relationships between the variables described in this report using a logistic regression. As Table 15 suggests, a significant model can be designed, but causality remains difficult to ascertain in a study of this size.
Table 15 Logistic Regression Coefficients of the Effect of Selected Variables on the Perceived Safety of Travel to School
Variable B Coefficient School
School A -.462
School B #
Gender
Male -.796**
Female #
Distance to school .049
Travel time -.001
Travel Mode
Walking -.654**
Private car -.825
Public transport #
-2likelihood= 291.333
Model Chi Square (dO= 66.331 (6); p= .000 Nagelkerke R Square= .302
Wald
2.270
#
7.904
# 1.171 .119
4.986 1.744
#
*p-O.OO; **p<0.05; ***p<0.10; # reference category
Ex(B)
.630
#
.451
# 1.050 .999
.520 .438
#
The regression presented above lists the variables hypothesised to have an effect on the reported safety of the journey to school. In this simple model, an unsafe journey is represented by a "0" and a safe trip by a "1". As the results of the regression demonstrate, there is no clear indication that the variance in safety as reported by the learners is explained by any of the independent variables listed in the model. Rather, the regression only shows that gender and travel mode are the only two significant
predictors in the model. In part, the limitations of the model can be explained by an unequal distribution of travel modes and the predominance of walking as a primary mode. Even though the model does little to explain the importance of the variables used in this study, it is suggested that a similar exercise would be valuable in a larger evaluation. Thus, the findings from this section should provide further justification for the use of this methodology with a study of a much larger scale.