City’s public transport system back bigger, better

The City of Cape Town’s transport and urban development authority has made good progress with the reinstatement of the advanced public transport management system.

According to the city, the system will enable the MyCiTi control centre to track and monitor its buses on its 40 routes across Cape Town.

“It’s anticipated the MyCiTi control centre will be operational within the next two to three months once the hardware, software and related systems, known as the advanced public transport management system (APTMS), are reinstated,” Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport and urban development, said yesterday.

“Once the APTMS is completed and we are satisfied with the outcome of the pilot phase, we will know the exact location of every bus at any time.

“Once fully operational, the APTMS will assist us in improving the service, and in communicating real-time information to our passengers.”

The MyCiTi service covers 40 routes across the city, with 42 stations and more than 700 bus stops.

“Our fleet consists of 377 buses and covers nearly 1.5 million kilometres each month, transporting up to 68 000 passengers on a weekday,” Herron said.

“Keeping track of every bus will assist us in monitoring the vehicle operating companies’ schedule adherence, as well as bus driver behaviour and bus travelling speeds.”

The APTMS pilot, which started in September to conduct in situ testing, had been successfully completed, with the system now gradually being rolled out to include the remaining MyCiTi buses and routes.

“Nearly 40% of our MyCiTi fleet is fitted with ‘advanced vehicle location hardware’. Nearly 30% of the fleet is operational with network video recorder hardware and software, inclusive of CCTV cameras and their displays,” Herron said.

“The footage recorded enables us to investigate all incidents involving our fleet.”

Commuters travelling on the N2 Express service between Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and Cape Town were the first to benefit from the roll-out of the real-time updates about the MyCiTi bus departures.

The 555 bus drivers employed by the MyCiTi vehicle operating companies were being trained to operate the bus communication system, which allowed them to be in constant voice contact with the MyCiTi control centre in Goodwood.– ANA