Despite growth in car use, most South Africans still use public transport and walk to get around, even though public transport is in a parlous state.
The National Household Travel Survey, conducted in 2003, found that 38-million citizens live in households with no access to cars and that 40-million citizens do not have a driver’s licence. Fourteen million learners walk to school. Seven million workers and learners use public transport to get to work and school.
Passengers are unhappy with the quality of the public transport service. The survey found that 71% of train users, 55% of taxi users and 54% of bus users were dissatisfied with crowded vehicles.
Public transport is likely to experience a continuous decline in the next 10 years as households with more than R3 000 a month in income switch to cars, says the Public Transport Strategy, released by the department of transport. At present a third of all work trips are made by car. Households with access to a car increased 33%, or by 808 000 households, between 1995 and 2003. Growth in work trips by car is double that of public transport between 1996 and 2003, the strategy says.
This is where government’s ambitious plans to upgrade public transport come in. If the department of transport gets its way, R10-billion will be allocated to the first phase of the public transport upgrade in capital investment for road corridors in a five-year period. Nearly R15-billion has been allocated to passenger rail funding between 2007 and 2010.
But an additional R5-billion a year is needed to arrest decline in public transport service levels and to implement planned high-quality, integrated, rapid mass public transport systems across the country in the next 10 to 15 years, the department says.
Successful implementation depends on the capacity of municipalities to manage the systems. ‘The overhaul of public transport and its transformation into local networks requires the development of specialised and skilled capabilities that will be a quantum leap over existing local public transport management capacity,” the document says.
The challenges are vast. The plans aim to bring minibus taxi operators on board, mainly on feeder routes, build new bus lanes, recapitalise 95% of all modes and integrate metered taxis, bicycles, bicycle taxis and long-distance public transport. Although the first phase will need to be completed by 2014, the pressure is on to deliver public transport upgrades by 2010 in time for the Soccer World Cup.
Safety and security are key concerns of commuters and can be difficult to deliver. The strategy document says public transport facilities should ensure enclosed stops with good shelter, dedicated lanes, lighting, information kiosks, signage, multi-modal terminals as service nodes, bicycle parking and park-and-ride facilities. At least some stops will also be served by closed-circuit cameras.