Who needs information on transport and rural infrastructure services?

The complexity of information seeking behaviour means there is no way of clearly determining who will be looking for what information at any particular time.  We do know that most audiences are looking for practical information related to their local environment, but the content or scope of this information will depend on the work they are engaged in and its objectives. This means that organisations providing information must make assumptions about what information is needed.  These assumptions are usually based on a range of informal and implicit ways of assessing knowledge demand and personal intuition.

Results from the study so far indicate that some of the assumptions made about some kinds of people are correct e.g. practitioners wanting practical information.  However, classification of people and assumptions of what they want, sometimes based on the information they have wanted in the past because of the kind of work that they’ve been working on does not allow for changes in demand in response to changing environments.  For example assuming that people in CSIR only want technical information would be to ignore the rapidly changing development context in which they may also need to  know about transport and its relationship to the millennium development goals!. 

In the non-transport sectors, there is an increased demand for information on the social aspects of energy [i] and less demand for technical information. Similar trends are reported for technology, along with increased demand for information about technology options rather than simply the promotion of particular solutions [ii] .  In the workshops, the frustration with the lack of gender disaggregated data, indicates a similar shift in the transport sector towards non-technical information. 

Sampling actual requests for information gives some insight into where the demand is coming from, but may also simply be a reflection of where the products are best known and most actively promoted. For TRL’s technical information, requests come mainly from English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and sometimes Tanzania. Occasional requests are also received from India, Pakistan, Nepal, but rarely from South or Central America, the Caribbean, or East Asia.  A large proportion of these users were students in universities who use the publications as text books, and by junior people in government who have responsibility for implementing projects.  TRL receives few requests for non-technical information, but this could be a result of how TRL is perceived by prospective seekers of information (i.e. they do not know that TRL produces information on ‘softer’ issues).  Nearly one third of ITDG’s total 933 enquiries originated in Eastern and Southern Africa, followed by one quarter in West and Central Africa and 10% in South Asia. Individuals made up the bulk of enquirers (52%) followed by NGOs and the commercial sector (18% and 16% respectively). Less than 10% of enquirers originated from local development agencies.  However, ITDG’s enquiry service reports that only 4% of its enquires are for transport.

In a review of audiences for DFID KaR research on transport (disseminated through Transport Research Laboratory) since 1990, the primary users of the research were seen to be design engineers or other technology professionals; planners, and community level agents for change. At the next level of importance were policy-level decision-makers, researchers, and NGOs active in technical interventions (where they exist); and least important users were trainers of trainers. Poor households were not considered to be users of the research information. TRL staff thought the kind of users of information had not changed much over the ten years being reviewed.  Respondents to a survey on the 19 publications in the Overseas Road Notes series, drawn from TRL’s database of existing contacts, showed the highest demand for the engineering titles (4/5 titles cited as having been read by 48% of respondents), followed by traffic and transport titles.

The study identified many examples of demand being stimulated by ‘enthusiasts’ such as ex-staff moving overseas, having an understanding of what information is available and promoting it.  In-country offices can also raise awareness of information and stimulate demand, but evidence from TRL’s Zimbabwe office suggests that this isn’t a guaranteed result.  Demand for information from ‘international’ information brokers may also reflect demand that is not being satisfied by local research and information,

The picture of demand for transport sector information that is emerging from this study is in marked contrast to the energy sector where it is reported that there has been a substantial shift in the last 10 years from technology specialists looking for technical information to communities/households, planners and policy makers looking for a broader range of information.