The Just Transport Podcast serves as a question space for transport practitioners, researchers and users. A name inspired by The Barefoot Facilitator’s TEDx Talk where she proposes that “just transport” spans between the kind of dialogue that exists and therefore the actions that persist. In this podcast, we search for insights around and about transport issues from around the globe with a focus on balancing or finding harmony between justice, efficiency, equity, effectiveness, fairness and redistribution. With one episode per week, available on iTunes and SoundCloud, we hope this podcast gets you to take action in thought and practice.
S1 E1 – Just transitions in transport policy with Lena Stiller (TUMI)
Lena Stiller is a Transport Policy Advisor at the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative, better known as TUMI. After her efforts to coordinate discussions around the bus transport industry’s response to COVID-19, her insights about the transport industry from TUMI’s point of view became of interest. Starting with The Barefoot Facilitator’s opening notes from her TEDx Talk, we talk through the private car culture and toward the importance of enabling policy implementation. The kind of implementation that cities and towns identify and nurture with technical and organisational support. She recommends a few focus areas for emerging researchers, and explains the importance of just transitions toward sustainable mobility.
S1 E2 – Participatory public transport data: Moving Gauteng with Neville Dipale
Neville Dipale is a technologist, and serial creator of various transport related technology solutions that involve the public from two angles. Moving Gauteng is the key platform for multimodal public transport information in the Gauteng Metropolitan Region. It is fed by a participatory data collection scheme which passengers practically inform one another geosnatially through a crowdsourcing mechanism that is a downloadable and affordable mobile application. In the second instalment of the Just Transport Podcast, we talk with Neville and he takes us through some of his logic in connecting the dots. The episode starts with Professor Eric Miller’s discussion points about and around the use of technology in transport data collection.
S1 E3 – People oriented transport planning and practice: Transport Truths with Nahungu Lionjanga and Rozina Myoya
Nahungu Lionjanga and Rozina Myoya run an honest commuter insight movement that captures what charts can’t: Transport Truths. In their recent TEDx Talk they describe their purpose toward people beyond inputs in statistical models. Transport speaks a number of truths about society, culture and place. All of this interwoven with values, dignity and spirit. Where we stand, where we go and how we get there are inherently informed by the “why” which drives what a purposeful existence is all about. Customers, commuters, passengers, people— are essentially human. Today’s guests, listen in to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, to kick of the discussion. We talk through commuter sensitivity, intelligent cities and the human values which should guide transport policy and planning.
S1 E4 – Framing paratransit reform in Africa with Nico McLachlan, ODA
Nico McLachlan is one of the leading transport practitioners in paratransit reform in Africa. As part of the Organisation Development Africa (ODA), he directs much of the shift from minibus taxi, dala dala and matatu type services to appropriately regulated public transport operations. These shifts could be hybrid services where scheduled and unscheduled transport are interfaced, or service transitions for regulators to reduce conflict and improve user experiences. In our discussion, he takes us through the various avenues toward regulating the paratransit sector, with deep focus on what is offered to the passenger. He highlights the role of demographics, the changing role of regulation, and the crucial future digitisation brings to the paratransit industry in Africa. Our conversation is hinged on sections from the seminal book ‘Paratransit in African Cities’ and the opening quote comes from Imraan Coovadia’s book ‘Institute for Taxi Poetry’. In his most recent article on the ODA blog, he highlights the transport futures we should expect after COVID-19. Our discussion takes the narrative one step further, focusing on the long-term effort needed to improve public transport for people “one-day” by starting with “day-one” as he put it.
We discuss the industry using a diagram found in a chapter in the Paratransit in African Cities book. Herrie Schalekamp‘s thesis presents a similar figure, which will help in today’s episode. Another interesting read is on some of the territorial issues around Paratransit, or the approaches to reform and improvement these could be of interest. You might also want to look at some of the blogs about the industry here with loads of resources too. The opening clip is from a situation in Gauteng, when a taxi driver was murdered and operators pleaded with owners for protection.
Another interesting read is on some of the territorial issues around Paratransit, or the approaches to reform and improvement these could be of interest. You might also want to look at some of the blogs about the industry here with loads of resources too. The opening clip is from a situation in Gauteng, when a taxi driver was murdered and operators pleaded with owners for protection.
S1 E5 – Avenues to regulate transport markets with Paolo Beria, TRASPOL
Paolo Beria is a Professor of Transport Economics from the Polytechnic University of Milan, with an array of applied interests in the fields of transport economics, appraisal, regulation, geography and the evolution of markets. He’s much more than that too. His work reveals the interplay and complexity embedded in regulating transport infrastructure and services, but also the political decisions that may influence practice overtime. From reading much of his material, his collaborative spirit shows an interest in how transport issues change over time, and assessing the impact of past, present and future decisions. In times of crisis or prosperity, transport economic regulation responds and reflects the time. He is a transport enthusiast, having written and published an Italian transport atlas, titled l’Atlante dei Trasporti Italiani, rendering him a valuable asset in the Italian transport industry. Our discussion starts with an audio clip from Jean-Jacque Laffont’s lecture, who before his passing, presented the initial workings about the role of economic regulation in development, for developing countries in particular. I read an extract from the book, ‘Regulation and Development‘ linked below, and we discuss the economic regulatory dynamics in Europe, national carriers, deregulation, liberalisation and other themes. All in an attempt to capture the complexity of some of the issues in introducing a practice that is unattractive but quite valuable to fair distribution.
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