There are times when you can set your watch to MyCiTi
THE letter “Off the rails, too: a MyCiTi gripe by numbers”, October 19, refers.
One must assume that Agi Orfanos has not travelled on a commuter train in Cape Town lately. Had he done so, he probably would have been late for work – given that only four out of every 10 trains (43%) are on time, or he would have had to make alternative plans, given that at least one out of every 10 trains (11%) is cancelled on a daily basis.
I want to point out that schedule adherence on the MyCiTi trunk routes was 91% in September 2017 and 93% for the feeder routes. The international norm for public transport is 80%.
Since its launch on 31 May 2010 to date, about 73.1 million passenger journeys have been made on the MyCiTi service. A total of 1 782 189 passenger journeys were recorded during May 2017. This equates to a year-on-year increase of 67 229 passenger journeys (3.9%) when compared with May 2016.
The average number of weekday passenger journeys recorded on the MyCiTi bus service is 66 775.
Nearly 194 000 passengers travel along the N2 Express routes between Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain and the Civic Centre each month.
Our records show that, on average, 4 875 commuters board the MyCiTi buses in the morning peak-hour period on weekdays – indicating an increase of 8.6% in comparison with September 2016.
While passenger rail numbers in Cape Town have fallen by 30% from 2015/16 to 2016/17, I want to point out that the MyCiTi service passenger journey numbers have been growing every month, confirming that the service is becoming commuters’ mode of choice.
Apart from providing commuters with affordable, safe and dignified public transport, the MyCiTi service makes a significant contribution to alleviating traffic congestion – in particular in the area where Orfanos resides.
For example, the MyCiTi routes from Table View southwards and back via the R27 and Koeberg Road are the most popular, with about 17 600 passengers journeys on an average weekday.
If these passengers were travelling by car at 1.5 passengers per car (the average occupancy of private cars), this means that just under 6 000 additional vehicles would have been added to the roads in the area in each direction per day.
The current capacity of the R27 southbound – one of the City’s most important arteries – is in the order of 2 000 vehicles per hour, allowing for intersection restrictions. Currently, the road network supply constrains the vehicular demand and we are experiencing a peak period of about two hours.
An additional 6 000 vehicles in both directions in the morning and afternoon peak periods (the equivalent of the MyCiTi commuter demand in this area) would result in the peak period increasing by an hour to about three hours.
Thus, apart from providing commuters with affordable and reliable public transport, the data confirms that the MyCiTi service is also making a significant contribution to alleviating traffic congestion in the Table View and Blouberg area. Cllr Brett Herron Mayoral Committee Member for Transport and Urban Development City of Cape Town