Planning for airports and logistics : case of Dube Tradeport
Authors:   , Hansmann Robynne Jean 
Published: October 2022

This study on planning for airports and logistics is concerned with how airports, as precincts containing specialised infrastructure and related uses, interact with the flow of goods distributed across multiple modes and transportation networks and land uses across local, regional, national and global scales. These flows indicate regional economic activity and have recursive relationships with transport infrastructure and industrial uses, including warehouses, logistics, business parks, and commercial uses. The research explores the role of airports to support the distribution of goods between global and regional economies and interrogates the integration of air cargo logistics in local production processes. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the multi-scalar role of airports in the flow of goods in order to develop a normative framework for planning that integrates land use and transportation planning towards developmental outcomes. The international movements of goods originate and terminate in cities at either maritime port terminals or international airports, and these act as the nodes where international trade interfaces with regional and local trade flows. The complexity of these global and regional flows across multiple locations and modes of transportation impacts on cities, with challenges for better planning for the movement of goods around airports. Historically, the focus of international trade flows on urban development relates to ports. However, over the past two decades, air transportation has grown internationally and airports play a more critical role in the internationalisation and globalisation of trade, particularly related to the relative value of goods to volume of goods handled by air as opposed to maritime shipping. The integration of global flows with local city flows presents complexities for both the management of materials within the supply chain, as well as the dispersed distribution of goods between places of production and consumption and within multi-scalar production processes. Research on the movement of goods and freight distribution is recognised as a persistent gap within transportation geography; specifically the intersection between transportation planning and urban planning. The rationale for the study relates to the role of airports in the relationship between the flow of goods and urban development, drawing from the field of transport geography and developing new knowledge related to logistics in the planning. The impact of increased movements of people and goods by air is expressed in emerging airport related urban forms. Despite contested claims that airports are generators of regional economic growth, there a number of negative impacts resulting from the growth around airports. The literature points to sustainability concerns and externalities of airports, questioning the role of planning to act in the public interest The objectives of this study are firstly concerned with relationships between transportation infrastructure and urban development, specifically in the context where the state is pursuing an infrastructure led development path. Secondly, the relationships between airports and logistics are explored in order to understand how airports interact with the multi-scalar movement of specific goods; thirdly, the interaction between airports with ports, roads and rail infrastructures; and fourthly how airports relate to spaces of production and distribution within the context of the case study in order to propose a normative framework for the planning of airports and logistics. The case study of Dube TradePort development, incorporating the King Shaka International Airport, is approached from within a constructivist paradigm, while acknowledging the subjective nature of truth, and the concomitant fact that the role of multiple perspectives and sources of information are necessary to such a study. The qualitative case study is both the object of inquiry, bounded to the Dube TradePort site, as well as the study design, used to explore how the movement of goods through a purpose-built cargo terminal integrates with land use. Integration between modes of transport improve the overall cost and efficiency of moving goods and improved integration between transportation and land use planning, which has implications for overall efficiency of the urban economy. The study contributes to the body of knowledge emerging from a developmental context on how planning for airport and logistics provides a critical reflection on the practice of airports and logistics for the field of urban planning. It is recommended that a regional spatial development framework process is initiated within a normative framework of spatial transformation. The study points towards substantive issues for inclusion in plan-making processes related to how positionality in airfreight flows is important to understand the multimodal and multi-scalar connectivity between air transport, with road, rail and sea-based modalities and secondly to understand how planning for airports can be integrated with planning for productive land uses within the city structure. The implication being that the plan-making process requires a layered approach that considers horizontal integration in local economies and multiscalar approach to integrating with global economies in terms of investment flows and material flows.