Ph.D. Research Profile: William Sabandar
Rural Transport: An examination of the links between concepts and impacts (Case Study of Indonesia)
Research Overview
This research is motivated by the reality that transport investments have not effectively addressed rural poverty issues in developing countries. Transport investment has historically been a focus of international aid agencies and governments in Third World countries, often accounting for 20-30% of total development budgets. The strong - but ambiguous - belief that transport had a significant role in poverty alleviation has long been the justification for putting transport among the top priorities for development expenditure. Despite this focus on transport investment, developing countries still face many problems generated by the lack of a good transport system. This situation is particularly bad in rural areas as indicated by the fact that most rural people still lack access to basic needs, and the majority of trips undertaken are still on foot and often involve carrying back, shoulder or head loads. Furthermore, it is women and children who bear the greatest transport burden.
The reality that over 70% of the poor live in rural areas and the lack of progress in transport development leads to the main inquiry posed by this research: is our conception of rural transport and its role in rural poverty alleviation appropriate for the reality that it seeks to change? The main hypothesis is that international aid agencies and national governments have failed to gain an appropriate understanding of the role that transport has in the lives of rural people and, therefore, have relied upon styles of transport improvement that have not brought maximum benefit to rural lives. Three key questions guide the research:
- What have experts, international aid agencies, central and local government in developing countries, and local communities understood about rural transport, and how far have those concepts addressed the needs of rural people?
- How far have the changes in transport situation as a result of transport and transport related interventions benefited rural people, especially "the poor"?
- How should be rural transport understood in order to appropriately dealing with rural problems, especially in alleviating poverty?
 Location of Study Site |
The outcome of the analysis will be a conceptual framework for rural transport development, which is based on an in-depth analysis of the role of transport in rural life.
Dealing with the above aims, Indonesia has been chosen as the region for case study. Two major tasks for this field research are (i) exploring the evolution of rural transport concepts and policies at the level of international aid agencies and government of Indonesia, and (ii) studying the impact of transport changes to rural lives in a set of different topographical areas of Indonesia. The first task is mainly done in Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia), while the districts of Western Maluku Tenggara, Sorong, Pangkep and Tana Toraja have been selected for the second assignment (figure 1).
Personal Profile
I came to this Department in early 2001, just after completing my Master of Engineering Science at the University of New South Wales, Australia. I gained the Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Hasanuddin, Indonesia in 1990 and worked as a transport planner in the Ministry of Public Works of Indonesia for 9 years. This practical experience helped me to focus my present research direction, which has been quite different with my previous academic background. Realising that the problems of transport are much more complex that what I had ever learned, I then decided to enhance my understanding of transport. I finally found TRANSPORT GEOGRAPHY as an area that can more convincingly and comprehensively satisfy my future needs.