A total of 1,8-million, or 39%, of workers in South Africa’s six biggest cities travel to work in a motor car, according to Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe. He has warned that a system of reducing single-occupant car use is on the cards.
Replying to a question on Wednesday from Democratic Alliance MP Stuart Farrow, shadow transport minister, whether public transport is sufficient for South Africa’s needs, the minister said a 2003 national household travel survey showed that 49% or 2,3-million workers in the big cities travelled by public transport.
The remaining 415 000, or 9%, walked to work in the urban cities — which include Cape Town, Durban/eThekwini, Pretoria/Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and the Nelson Mandela metro with Port Elizabeth.
Radebe noted that 50% of city drivers who drove a car to work said they did not actually need to use the car during business hours.
“This 50% of metropolitan [city] drivers thus provide an ideal target group to offer incentives to in order to get them to either ride-share [share a car], walk, cycle or take public transport to work,” said the minister.
“If just 10% of the[se] car drivers … were to ride-share three days a week, it would lead to a 3% reduction in the weekly work-related vehicle trips in the six metropolitan cities.”
He noted that, according to the household survey, 3,15-million workers nationally used private cars, and those who used public transport numbered 3,85-million.
Radebe said a travel-demand management strategy is “still being developed and it will be presented to Parliament as soon as it is ready for consultation”.
It is anticipated that the strategy will propose a “series of” incentives as well as penalty measures for single-occupant car use.
“It will also explore the sequencing of these measures and required conditions before certain penalty measures will be introduced.”
Radebe said the exact capacity of current public-transport supply in metropolitan areas will be established through the development of local integrated transport plans. They are currently being finalised, he said. — I-Net Bridge