Case study approach and selecting the case study

This research adopts a case study approach. This approach provides flexibility of research design that allows intrinsic and instrumental data and narrative to emerge naturally (Yin, 2012). It also provides a detailed roadmap for designing the research prior to the fieldwork to validate the case study under investigation. According to Yin (2009), a case study is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p.18). The case study is appropriate for exploring the policy tensions that emerge in the governance of urban transportation and climate change policies. It helps to investigate policy decisions in specific cities in depth and interprets events and actions taken by actors involved in the policy-making process (David & Sutton, 2011). The strengths of the case study approach relate to the detail of the investigation in understanding the events and the implications of critical situations during the policy- making process. The case study also provides a complementary explanation to understanding overlapping and interrelated phenomena in a specific place (Baxter, 2010). Flyvbjerg (2006) argued that a single case study cannot represent the whole system due to biases present in the case study. Therefore, this research proposes to adopt three layers of case studies to answer the research question.

In the first layer, this research focuses on policy and planning for urban public transport to contribute to global climate change mitigation strategies. Many medium-sized LIA cities face severe urban transport and environmental problems, as well as having limited national and international attention, although medium-sized cities received recent attention from the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia, 2009) and the 2014 IPCC Report on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014). The significant numbers of medium-sized cities with a population of more than two million people is the dominant feature in LIA cities. The number of such cities increased from 194 cities in 2000 to 288 cities in 2025 (Cohen, 2006). These cities are growing very fast and have a tendency to follow the urban transport development pattern and policies of big cities/metropolitan areas (Dimitriou, 2006). Most medium-sized cities in LIA are located in low-lying and coastal areas (H. Blanco et al., 2009; Fuchs et al., 2011; WWF, 2009) and therefore are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Fuchs et al., 2011; Seto, Sánchez-Rodríguez, & Fragkias, 2010). Bandung and Surabaya are representing LIA cities of having taken initiatives in promoting public transport solutions of European design in these cities. The involvement of multiple actors is at different levels to overcome transport and environmental problems including international development agencies. The selection of Bandung and Surabaya is based on their progress with BRT projects, which is part of the third layer of the case study.

In the second layer, this research selected medium-sized cities, Bandung and Surabaya as case studies to represent medium-sized LIA cities. The selection is based on their important roles to the national economic growth, while having main problems with their initiatives in promoting public transport solutions in these cities. The problems are associated with the heavy involvement of multiple actors at different levels to overcome transport and environmental problems. Both cities have certain intrinsic values, such as the historical cities, socio-cultural context, economic and demographic conditions, political leadership characteristics, and specific local circumstances that enrich and produce insightful knowledge for understanding the causes of multi-level policy tensions. The research produced from these case studies can help to overcome multi-level tensions in other medium-sized LIA cities.

The third layer of the case study selected BRT development for empirical investigation. Public transport is considered important in role in achieving sustainable urban development goals in Indonesian cities due to a high rate of urbanisation and motorisation (Firman, 2009a; Satterthwaite, 2006). There are three main reasons for selecting BRT development.

First, BRT is a popular policy being transferred globally as a solution to transport and environmental problems. For example, global actors praised the Ahmedabad and Jakarta BRT due to their transport and environmental impacts. The Ahmedabad BRT shifted 34% of total commuters from private vehicles to BRT (ITDP, 2010a), while Jakarta BRT has reduced CO2 emissions by 37,000 metric tons in 2009, which is equivalent to taking 6,800

cars off the road (ITDP, 2010b).

The second reason for selecting BRT is because BRT is supported by international development agencies in their bilateral or multilateral aid programmes. There are more than 167 cities that have built or are currently building BRT projects, including many in South East Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. BRT in LIA cities is supported by the international development organisations, central and local government, local leaders, and wider civil society (Cervero & Kang, 2011; Ernst & Sutomo, 2010; Kogdenko, 2012; Rodriguez & Targa, 2004) as a product to reduce transport-related emissions. They need careful investigations.

The third reason for selecting BRT is thatBRT system started facing challenges due to the different structure of different cities, urban population density and urbanisation levels. It is interesting to note that despite wide support for and use of BRT systems around the world, only a few are successful (Agyemang, 2015). It is interesting to investigate what kinds of challenges BRT projects are facing in Bandung and Surabaya and how to make these projects successful. These findings contribute knowledge to cities that have and will have a BRT system in place, so that BRT systems can become successful in Indonesian and other medium-sized LIA cities. Therefore, BRT is considered as a representative of a case where multi-level tensions emerge from the problems of transport governance at multi-level structure in many LIA cities, including in Indonesia.