I suspect that there was not enough student at undergrad level and I also suspect that this trend is still continuing today. This is not only at UJ but also at other universities. Just take a look at the Stellenbosch University (SUN)'s Logistics Department which has at the moment no student registered for Masters in Transport Economics while Logistics and Operational Research Masters class has more students. So where are all the Transport Economics students?
Going back to the UJ dilemma, the worse thing was the fact that student with a degree in Marketing preferred to switch to Logistics at honours level than to transport economics nor there were students with a degree in Economics switched to Transport Economics. The question is this the case? Is it because there is lack of awareness about transport economics as a career? This is disturbing, considering that South Africa has one of the most ineffective public transport in the world. Do I hear you saying civil engineers/traffic engineers will take care of the problem? Besides SA not producing enough engineers, civil engineers alone are not capable enough to solve the challenges facing the country, as much as transport economics are not cable enough to solve them.
It does not help that few Universities offer the course at undergraduate level; At the moment, only UJ, NWU and SUN and UNISA are the only Universities that offers the course while UCT only offers a M.Phil in Transport Studies for postgraduate students. It also don't help that Transport Economics student don't get appropriate training or job opportunities after graduation. It is difficult to be hired to work as a Transport Economist in a private industry/government hence most students end up working in the logistics industry. I know this because most of the students who were in class with me at honours level are now employed by freight moving companies. If they were lucky like me, they ended up working for government or for consulting companies, but we are very few that ended up in this route.
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Besides all these challenges, one must complement the Department of Transport for encouraging students to take up Transport studies in universities around the country through its Center of Development. This initiative also led NWU starting its own Transport and Logistics courses in 2003, of which I was part of. Through the initiative, millions of Rands were spent on bursaries for students to study either Transport Economics or Logistics at undergraduate level while any transport related courses were encouraged in post graduate level. But it seems like students who benefited from this initiative are not being employed by the Department of Transport, which is worrying.
