Providing efficient and reliable transport to city
Cape Town will benefit from integrated model, writesbrett
HE CITY is putting an integrated multimodal public transport network in place where MyCiTi, as a road-based rapid transit mode, is intended to complement the city’s rail system. A convenient, quality and seamless public transport network is essential for the sustainability and liveability of Cape Town; the expansion of Cape Town’s MyCiTi bus system and other similar systems in SA cities is beginning to demonstrate that quality, commuter-focused public transport can be a reality for South Africans.
MyCiTi is designed to provide crucial linkages not addressed by rail, thus offering significantly enhanced mobility for all our residents and enabling reliable, efficient access to education, jobs and recreation.
The MyCiTi 2012 business plan discussed in the city’s finance committee yesterday details the planned expansion of the MyCiTi network.
Providing public transport as efficient, safe and reliable as MyCiTi is a formidable task. But the city is dedicated to its expansion as part of our commitment to building an inclusive city of opportunities that integrates communities previously separated by apartheid.
The 2012 business plan covers the operation of phase 1A (which will soon be extended from current services to include Atlantis, Dunoon, the Atlantic seaboard, Hout Bay, Salt River and Woodstock), and the plan introduces phase 1B (including a dedicated trunk service to Dunoon, Century City and Montague Gardens, with feeder routes linking the system with Salt River and suburbs like Edgemead) as well as the N2 Express service to Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain.
There has always been widespread public interest in the costs of operating the MyCiTi service. Scrutiny of the project’s finances is welcome and essential and the updated business plan outlines a prudent and cautious approach to the financial modelling for existing and upcoming MyCiTi routes and addresses the financial risks.
The current costs of the MyCiTi service consist largely of once-off capital expenses that are essential for initiating a quality service. These include road works, construction of stations and stops, setting up a quality automated fare system, and a control system that monitors safety and reliability, ensuring vehicles run to timetables and users are informed about when buses will arrive. They also include the costs of business and system design and the
Tcompensation of minibus taxi operators who are giving up their rights to operate in the area. While infrastructure must be maintained, the substantial costs required for initial implementation will not need to be repeated.
This and other capital expenditure is all funded by national government’s Public Transport Infrastructure and Systems Grant (PTISG). The city’s demonstrated ability to implement our plans has earned us the confidence of national government and the concomitant commitment to future funding.
Besides the start-up capital costs, there are ongoing operating costs incurred in running the system, including the cost of contracts with service providers (such as the vehicle operating companies, station management and control centre). Fare revenue and advertising pays for a proportion of these costs, with the deficit currently shared between national government and the city.
Both national government and the city are working together to find funding and implementation approaches which, while ensuring high service standards, incentivise the containment of costs and encourage prudent spending.
The city’s urban form, with low densities and long travel distances, together with peaked travel demand patterns and high income inequalities, makes the provision of quality public transport challenging and expensive.
Ironically, it is a decent public transport service that is essential to undo these hostile characteristics and our 2012 MyCiTi business plan illustrates our long-term commitment to investment in the future of public transport and our city. We believe that a quality public transport system is essential to economic growth and ensuring that Cape Town achieves its full potential.
In our request for MyCiTi funding to national government, we proposed that national and the city share any future operating deficit equally, subject to the city’s capping
PROVIDING PUBLIC TRANSPORT AS EFFICIENT, SAFE AND RELIABLE AS MYCITI IS A FORMIDABLE TASK
its spending on MyCiTi at a maximum of 4 percent of rates income with the balance of any deficit coming from national government funding. This is in line with an earlier suggestion by National Treasury and would incentivise containment of costs by the city while sharing the investment with national government.
In phase 1A, for the 2011/12 financial year, the city contributed R187 million from its property rates and other general revenue sources towards these costs. The city proposes that each party would fund R128 million for the current financial year, increasing to R212 million for the 2015/16 financial year, for phase 1A, phase 1B and the N2 Express services combined. These amounts are below the envisaged cap.
We have taken a conservative approach to costs and revenue and recent modelling suggests that fare revenue may well be up to 25 percent higher than assumed in the business plan, in which case the required contribution from council’s own funding would be lower.
The PTISG funding already received, and confirmed for the future, will cover the capital expenditure for phase 1A, phase 1B and the N2 Express, and cofunding recurrent costs. Up until end-June 2012, the city had received R3.74 billion, and a further R3.94bn has been committed until June 2015. National Treasury has already committed a total of R7.7bn to public transport in Cape Town.
The city is learning as MyCiTi expands, but the service is a growing success. We are being transparent, cautious and realistic in our plans, with input and support from national government.
The initial costs may appear high, but we are making a significant investment in an excellent public transport service that is essential to secure the sustainability of our city. This investment will transform the economically inefficient layout of our city and will ensure that all our residents will enjoy increasingly enhanced urban mobility in an integrated inclusive liveable city.
BrettHerronisthemayoral committeememberfortransport,roadsandstormwater.This isthefirstofatwo-partfeature onCapeTownpublictransport.