When we examine the barriers to freedom that exist in South Africa, we rarely think of transport. We look at the country’s economic constraints, its disparity between rich and poor and its high levels of poverty and unemployment. We explore the obstacles in education and healthcare, especially cost and access. But we don’t often think of the ways in which an inadequate transportation system plays into these challenges, limiting freedom and equality across the country.
In the General Household Survey, 2023 released by Statistics South Africa, the most commonly used mode of transport to travel to work in South Africa, is a private car. After that, people travel by taxi. Or they walk. When it comes to getting to school, just under two-thirds of South Africa’s learners go by foot. Not surprising though, is that so few households used the train in 2023 that there are no reliable train travel-related figures in the survey.
What is surprising is the prominence of walking featured in conversations about South Africa’s transportation infrastructure especially considering that ours is not a small country. Towns and cities are typically large and difficult to navigate on foot. And the distances between the urban centres where people study and work, and the peri-urban and rural areas where they live, are vast. And yet in this survey, walking to work dominates over any other publicly owned or operated form of transport.
This Mandela Day, we owe it to the next generation of South Africans to further dismantle these barriers. An integrated, functioning and affordable transport system has to be part of that solution.
South Africa’s apartheid-era spatial segregation policies left a lasting impact on how we travel within and between the country’s cities, towns and villages. It disproportionately affected, and continues to affect, people of colour, who still have to travel for longer periods of time, in unreliable modes of transport, and at greater cost, to get to where they need to be.
In 2003, for example, black South Africans spent 88 minutes a day commuting to and from work. White South Africans, by contrast, spent 54 minutes. Ten years later, in 2013, both of these figures had increased by 14 minutes. In 2023 in Pretoria, South Africa’s most congested city, the average commuter spent 146 hours – or six days – in rush-hour traffic during the course of the year.
These long commuting times reduce productivity, affecting the profitability of businesses and the growth of the national economy. In more personal terms, they limit leisure time and take a toll on people’s mental and physical health. These frustrations are carried by both families and communities and have a negative effect.
But time isn’t the only way in which South Africa’s transportation system is failing its users.
Across the country, access to reliable and affordable public transport is limited. In some rural or low-income areas, it doesn’t exist at all. The General Household Survey reports that, countrywide, 37% of households who make use of public transport used a taxi in the week preceding the survey. Only 4% used a bus.
In remote areas especially, this lack of transport limits people’s ability to attend schools, places of work and colleges and universities consistently and on time. It affects access to healthcare services and leads to deteriorating health outcomes. It affects the possibility of people reaching job interviews and gaining long-term employment. And it exacerbates economic inequalities, making rural areas less likely to lift themselves out of cycles of poverty.
And then there’s the cost. Transport in South Africa is relatively expensive compared to the median income. Many households, especially those in lower income brackets, spend a significant portion of their income on public transport. In Gauteng, nearly 60% of households spend more than the policy maximum target of 10% of their income on transport.
South Africa’s future success depends on an integrated transport network. Citizens need to have the means available to them to get where they need to be quickly, easily and affordably. Without this intervention, other critical issues, including education, healthcare and economic development, will remain problematic.
This journey starts with open and transparent communication: between citizens and government officials, between different government departments, between local and provincial municipalities and between the public and private sectors. And these conversations need to lead to concerted advocacy for better policies and the improved execution of said policies.
Transportation needs to be given greater recognition as we seek to improve South Africa’s socio-economic situation. If this happens, we’re much more likely to get from A to B — from the status quo to a prosperous future.
Bongani Mthombeni is the director of Smart Mobility and a board director at Royal HaskoningDHV in South Africa.
