Re-Imaging Low Carbon Mobility Transitions In South Africa: A Case Of Public Transport

Abstract

This manuscript reimagines South Africa's public transport system, using the multi-level perspective (MLP) transition-theoretical lenses of analysis developed by Geels et al., (2016). Rapid urbanisation, the climate change crisis and emergency, rapid motorisation and rising pollution levels, failing and ageing infrastructure, spatial inequality and fragmentation, and uneven low-carbon transitions across transport modes and industrial sectors constitute key levers of change that frame the unfolding low-carbon public transport transitions in South Africa. Using the multi-level perspective transition lenses and selected key informant interviews, along with case studies from the Limpopo, Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, the manuscript unravels the conflicting rationalities and realities associated with advancing just public transport transitions in South Africa. The manuscript proposes that a reimagined low-carbon urban transport and mobility transition is not enough and is incomplete without a complementary and proportionate development of at-scale rural mobility transitions.