Civil Engineering January/February 2021 | Vol 29 No 1

Using the National Household Travel Survey (2013), Vanderschuren separated South Africa’s various population groups into adults and children, persons with disabilities, and males and females, and unpacked the specific transport planning and implementation activities for these groups, or the lack thereof. VISION IMPAIRED There are more than 4.5 million people in South Africa who experience some form of vision impairment that impacts their ability to travel. These individuals are accommodated through the planned use of tactile paving. Unfortunately, in practice, there are both good and bad examples of the imple- mentation of tactile paving. Figure 2 high- lights the implementation of tactile paving in an appropriate manner. Figure 3, on the other hand, shows the misuse of tactiles. “If tactiles are implemented in this manner, the vision impaired pedestrian will end up in the middle of the intersection,” explains Vanderschuren. Figure 4 provides another example of inappropriate use, which guides the vision impaired pedestrian into the glass door, which is slow to open, posing a potential hazard. GRANT DEPENDENTS There are around 33.4 million South Africans who depend on either old-age, child, or disability grants. According to Vanderschuren, there is no specific public transport planning for these individuals. In practice, many of these grant recipients need to travel long distances to collect their grants, and during the early stages of the Covid-19 lockdown, last year, there were some extremely unfortunately instances of pensioners perishing in the sun, while waiting to collect their monies. MOBILITY IMPAIRED In terms of mobility impairments, 0.52 million South Africans use walking sticks, 0.25 million use wheelchairs and another 0.22 million people use crutches. Ramps are provided at intersections to accom- modate individuals in wheelchairs. Is transport planning and implementation failing 75% of our citizens ? Professor Marianne Vanderschuren presented the 68 th Snape Memorial Lecture on 11 November 2020. The Snape Memorial Lecture was instituted in 1953 by University of Cape Town (UCT) students to honour the late Professor Alfred Ernest Snape. Presenting online to 90 delegates, Vanderschuren questioned whether South Africa is not only providing equality, but also equity in transport. 32 January/February 2021 Civil Engineering Figure 2 The use of tactile paving in Alexandra, Johannesburg Prof Marianne Vanderschuren Professor in Transport Planning and Engineering Deputy Dean Social Responsiveness & Transformation University of Cape Town marianne.vanderschuren@uct.ac.za Figure 1 Population breakdown Male Male <18y Female <18y Female Seeing Grants Walking Hearing Con... W... C S... 49.2% 25% 25.8% Communication Self care Concentration Wheelchair