An empirical review of Karachi's transportation predicaments: A paradox of public policy ranging from personal attitudes to public opinion in the megacity

Abstract

Karachi as a megacity faces huge transportation challenges ranging from rampant urbanization and limited budgets to inefficient infrastructures. The issues of over-crowding, traffic congestion, poor quality of service, ill-fitness of the vehicles, women mobility and unbridled sexual harassment issues on busses are the emerging challenges in the transportation sector. The paper focuses on gauging the public opinions, attitude formation and travel behaviour choices of residents and documenting empirical evidence of public concern for improving the public transport predicaments in Karachi. The analysis, largely interpretive in nature, uses the results of a representative survey of residents of Karachi for the evidentiary aspects of the analysis. In principle, this research provides an empirical based mechanism through which public opinion and public policy could be reliably and usefully connected.