Stay with working transport system

IF it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – an old saying, but never more true. It can be seen in all the activity around the mess that was created by the hurried imposition of a “world class” public transport system on NMBM.

It was to be in place before the 2010 Fifa World Cup, but eight years and R2-billion later, it is as far from reality as the man in the moon. Investigations and new studies are now said to be under way, and the subject has become a new kind of football game.

The metro doesn’t need a third public transport system. It has two functioning systems: Algoa Bus and the taxi industry.

People are happy to use them and all that needs to be done is upgrade them to keep up with times and trends. In trend with technology and the times, electronic ticketing and monitoring can be introduced on all public transport vehicles, taxis and buses.

Thereby the taxi industry can be brought into the formal system and all the attendant benefits of formalisation will be achievable.

Public transport subsidies can then be extended to the taxi industry to bring it on the same footing as the bus industry. Money for subsidisation can come from sums that would otherwise be needed to bolster a BRT-based system.

Adopt and stay with the public transport concept of direct service as opposed to the trunk feeder model planners tried to install in NMBM, which was the root of the trouble. This was because the intention was to take large numbers of taxis off the road.

Electronic monitoring is no longer rocket science. It can be seen in many places, for instance satellite tracking of vehicles for security and fleet control, and the swipe card system on My Citi buses in Cape Town.

Competitive bidding procedures can and need to be applied, and this can be part of the metro’s new way forward.