Partnerships to Improve Access and Quality of Public Transport: Guidelines

This book is part of a DFID funded series undertaken by WEDC, discussing issues of partnership in different sectoral and thematic contexts. This particular book, one of several on transport, looks at the links between public transport and the livelihoods of the poor, setting transport within the sustainable livelihoods approach – in other words, considering transport as one of the many linked assets that contribute to households being able to meet their needs. From this perspective, then, transport becomes not simply a way to get to work, but also to a way to access the services that contribute to securing and improving livelihoods, and to the social relationships which strengthen social capital and can support income generation.

Drawing on case studies from Colombo, Sri Lanka, from Faisalabad in Pakistan and from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the book considers a range of transport problems that especially affect the poor – including high transport costs, low availability, slow and unreliable services, poor infrastructure, safety problems and a lack of regulation of increasingly privatized services. Discussion of various problems is enriched by boxes featuring the voices of women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Guidelines for improvement emerging from these case studies focus on the main improvements to infrastructure that appear to be needed; positive land use and employment strategies that could lower the need for transport; regulation to control the quality, quantity and cost of transport; and various approaches to stakeholder collaboration. The book includes a CD that contains both guidelines and the case reports.