The relationship between transport, housing and urban form: Affordability of transport and housing in Indonesia

Abstract

There is growing concern for the affordability of daily travel. The proportion of household budgets spent on transport is significant, including fuel and/or public transport fares. Transit costs, especially for middle to low-income groups, are associated with a household’s housing location choice. In many cases, households are making trade-offs by either spending more on housing in the inner city, with lower transport costs, or choosing more affordable housing in suburban areas, with higher commuting cost. As such, transport and housing costs are interrelated not only due to their substantial share in household budgets, but they are also linked as fundamental elements of urban systems. Understanding the pattern and linkages of both transport and housing affordability is important to support the formulation of transport policies. This paper aims to quantitatively examine transport and housing affordability by exploring middle- to low-income household’s transport and housing expenses in the Bandung Metropolitan Area (BMA), Indonesia. Households in nine locations within BMA with various housing type and spatial characteristics were surveyed. Collected data from 405 households are used to measure variables including fuel, parking, maintenance cost, public transport fares, rent and owners’ equivalent rent. In addition to the widely applied housing and transport (H + T) affordability ratio measure, this study proposes an alternative way to measure affordability using the interval data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. The analysis measures each housing location’s performance in terms of transport, housing, and overall affordability. Having the interval affordability performance scores sorts out the data variability problem as well as provides policy makers with a greater flexibility in setting targets in policy formulation. The results indicate that household affordability not only is affected by housing type, but also by the choice of transport modes. Spatial characteristics yield mixed results, suggesting the relationship between affordability and urban form is complex. This study contributes to the growing literature of both transport and housing affordability, particularly in the less explored and distinctive context of Asian cities in the Global South, and has implications for policy in the urban, housing, and transport sectors in Indonesia.