South Africans depend on public transport, and according to Stats SA report compiled for Department of Public Transport and available for the public at large, and also quoted on Pegasys website, indicates that of the 35 million daily motorised person trips recorded in South Africa, over 60% are by public transport with 2 million daily passenger trips by rail, 4 million by bus and around 15 million by minibus taxi (NHTS, 2003).
The purpose of this essay is to give my opinion on key challenges facing the public transport sector in South Africa over the next 5 years. The key challenges are the following:
Customer care especially in the taxi industry
Passengers and drivers empowerment
Safety of passengers and drivers
Affordability
Availability and accessibility of the public transport for disabled and rural areas dwellers
Working relation
Corruption
Discussion
The identified key challenges are discussed.
Customer care
The most used public transport is minibus taxis and most of their passengers are people who are oblivious to their rights as customers and it is not their fault. Those who are aware of their rights as customers have nowhere to raise their trepidations and complain. The taxis industry has no such platform for passengers and many
…show more content…
It is not enough for drivers to just know basic driving. They need to be trained to be able to perform first aids, advance driving and how to deal with difficult customers. To emphasis my opinion, I would like to quote Mail and Guardian: “According to the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), taxis transport approximately 15-million commuters daily and this consists of 60 to 70% of the commuting public and workforce. Yet this industry is plagued with health and safety issues and a track record of death and poor driving”. Buying a new safer taxi for a poor driver won’t make any significant difference in safety and any other
Government has indeed failed its citizens in multiple cities across our nation as well as abroad. The occurrences of bus and rail service frequencies while raising passenger fares, is far too often. This can be attributed to the really low ridership about 20 years ago. With the low ridership, transit across the US was operating with sizeable deficit in 1997. At this time, $19 billion was spent while only $10.6 billion in revenues was acquired. It has been shown by Prickell and Lee that government attests to special interests and not commuters (Winston, 2000). Federal monies went predominantly to transportation employees and transportation equipment suppliers (75%) and the remaining quarter to actually improve systems and obtain affordability
Arriva UK provides with long-standing experience across a diverse portfolio of services with 5,900 buses, 357 train sets, 45 Metro trains, 474 patient transport vehicles and help create jobs for 24,800 employees. Arriva has grown to become the third largest regional bus market provider. In London, Arriva operates over 20 percent of the capital’s services under contract with Transport for London. After starting the Arriva Trains Wales contract in 2003, the company went on to win the CrossCountry contract in 2007. When Arriva became part of Deutsche Bahn, four more routes were added to the Arriva Trains UK network in 2011, and thence, the company established the Arriva Transport Solutions as a specialist transport business within the group that helps public sector organisations provide excellent transport services more efficiently, and deliver better value for money. It is said that, transport services are at the heart of the UK economy - moving people to work, home and school, and goods to households and businesses, thus there are close connections among the economy, politics and transport industry. This assignment is aimed at analysing the impact of economic and political factors on UK
A method used consistently has had some form of qualitative, empirical research and sometimes combined with quantitative data from surveys. I believe this was to help identify underlying complex factors. Yet, the articles don’t explore explicitly how these attitudes, preferences and choices are made. Consequently, referring to books written for transportation policies and problems surrounding this transport mode became necessary to understanding these
Do you ever feel like you are waiting at a red light in your car for what seems like forever? Well, that’s because “ The average person throughout their lifetime spends five years waiting in lines and queues where roughly six months of that is waiting at traffic lights”(How). Cities and towns have faced a transportation problem and they are looking for ways to tackle the issue. Transportation is a big part of one’s everyday life, and it is impossible to avoid it. Transportation plays a crucial role in the way we travel to things like school and work. Humans need transportation to get from place A to place B. There are different kinds of transportation, but the most common one in modern society is automobiles. Although transportation of automobiles is a quick way of traveling at the moment. Automobiles bring issues like health problems, air pollution, and high expenses. This is because humans always manage to take the easy way out without looking at the long-term effects that come with automobiles.
Too, L. and Earl, G. (2010), Public transport service quality and sustainable development: a community stakeholder perspective. Sustainable Development., 18: 51–61.
most cities and the taxi companies do not know how to respond due to the fact that they have
To begin, mass transit used to rule the city life, nobody could get around without using some form of public transportation. Now, there are many
While I understand that public transportation is an enormous expense within a city, it is also a necessary expense. I think in most ways the protests and suggestions already in place are some of the best possible ways to handle the transportation issue in cities, I also believe that it is flawed. I do not see how adding more buses to the routes of crowded areas will help to decrease the pollution in those areas, but I will agree that more buses are necessary. I also do not think that my ideas are entirely the best way to go about things because it is still causing a problem for the people who really can not afford the fare hikes. As a result I believe that solving this problem will require compromise, both from the community and the city, because
It is regarded as the maker of cities (Ogunsanya, 2002). Therefore, urban centres and their transport systems are fully complementary. Among modes of transportation, road transportation is one of the means to bridge the gap between the place of abundance and place of scarcity. It is vital to economic development, trade and social integration especially in the developing nations. It is the most commonly used mode of transportation in Nigeria today (National Bureau of Statistics, 2014). The increasing population and poor economic situation as well as inadequate technology development generally in developing nations and Nigeria in particular make intra and intercity movement of people and goods rely heavily on the road transportation which is largely in the hand of the private sector (Oyesiku, 2002). Also, increase in the demand for inter-urban work, business and other trips are stimulating interaction among urban centres. In fact, due to continuous increased in inter-urban trips, majority of state governments are contributing to the number of buses available for inter-urban trips. Nigeria has the largest road network in West Africa and second largest South of the Sahara. Road transportation account for 94% of transport system in Nigeria. (FRSC, 2011; Innocent, 2011). Therefore, road transport is the major means of inter-urban movement of passengers and goods in Nigeria. For instance, between 1999 and 2005, all the government owned mass transit bus systems in the city of Enugu withdrew their intra-urban transport services and concentrated on inter-urban transport services (Ali, 2010). More so, inter-urban trips are encouraged due to the increased in disposable income of the people which in turn increased vehicle ownership and automatically increased the availability of vehicles for long distance movement as well as improved transport infrastructure (Agbonkhese et al.,
Since the implementation of e-tolls began there has been social unrest where by it is the public verse the government where by the public feels that the government is robbing they by charging the extra for using the road and they think that government has avoided their opinion in implementing the e-toll structures. It is bad enough that that people have to pay for tax, water, electricity and all other essentials that have been implemented by government.
We all use vehicles for transportation. People usually go to their desired destination either by driving their own cars or traveling in public transportation. Actually, it might be tough to choose that which one is the best selection for people to travel. Many people choose one of them according to their comfort while traveling and both of them have advantages and disadvantages in different conditions. Public transportation and driving own car both shares differences and similarities in many aspects, such as facility, cost, and comfort as well as traffic jam and accident occurrence.
Transportation affects every aspect of our lives and daily routine, including where we live, work, play, shop, go to school, etc. It has a profound impact on residential patterns, industrial growth, and physical and social mobility. Roads, highways, freeways and mass transit systems do not spring up out of thin air. They are planned. Someone makes a conscious decision to locate freeways, bus stops, and train stations where they are built. Transportation is no less a civil rights and quality of life issue. Safety and accessibility are the most significant considerations in transportation planning. Zoning and other practices of exclusion result in limited mobility for poor people and those concentrated in central cities.
The development of every nation hinges on the effectiveness of their transportation systems. Movement of goods, services and people to and from locations is made possible by transportation systems. The importance of effective transportation systems cannot be over-emphasized. Many countries face transportation problems and my country Ghana is no exception. A trip of about 30 minutes usually takes about an hour or more due to traffic jams. This is seriously impacting productivity and has become a topical issue in the country. The situation is the same in Uganda where I currently work. To this end, Transportation Engineers are needed to design roads/ highways that will stand the test of time, plan effective traffic management systems to reduce
If you use public transport you spend on your journey as and when you need to travel, whereas if you own a car you are paying for it all the time, even if you are not using it, as insurance, tax and MOTs need constantly maintaining.
On the contrary, using private car is the same convenience of travelling as public transport. When people are in a hurry, they can suddenly go ev...