Abstract
Ph.D. (Energy Studies)
The purpose of this research was to assess the influences of transport infrastructure on
urban development and mobility in emerging megacities. The method is demonstrated
using the Gauteng City-Region as a case study. The main criteria were to assess how past
urban growth patterns have been influenced by the established transport infrastructure, to
assess the transport energy implications of past trends and on this basis, develop
land-use/transport scenarios that optimise space, transport accessibility and energy.
The procedure involved a time-series analysis of Landsat satellite-derived land-use
change at three decadal intervals (1991, 2001 and 2009), spatial analysis of corridor
(ribbon/linear) development using a series of urban growth maps in conjunction with
transport infrastructure, estimation of the transport energy implications of current and past
urban structures and the development of possible urban land-use/transport scenarios. The
land-use change and urban growth trends analysis was based on a method combining
land-use/cover mapping of Landsat5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat7 Enhanced
Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) satellite imagery, supervised classification and
post-classification. Effects of transport infrastructure on land-use development were
assessed by analysing urban growth densities within buffer zones of major roads and
railway stations, at 0.5 km intervals. To estimate the transport energy implications of
current and past urban structures, satellite imagery derived urban growth data are
combined with products of the Gauteng Transportation Study 2000 (GTS 2000) model
developed on the EMME/2™ platform. Future land-use/transport scenarios are developed
within the framework of critiqued urban growth models, success and failures stories in
other city-regions, policy positions of the three spheres of Government and preceding
results of this study...