Big changes planned for cities in South Africa – including an overhaul for public transport
The Department of Transport has published the National Land Transport Strategic Framework 2023-2028 (NLTSF) for public comment.
The department gazetted the document this past week, outlining a new five-year framework for cities in South Africa, with the primary aim of planning and delivering efficient land transport strategies that, in turn, provide guidance to municipalities across the country.
According to the department, the overall goal of the NLTSF is to “create an integrated and efficient land transport system to support the economy, promoting safe and accessible mobility options”.
One of the thirteen functional areas covered by the framework includes Urban Transport and plans for “Smart Cities.”
The government now plans to make urban public transport across major metros more efficient and capable of taking on increased capacity.
The new initiative aims to prevent critically high traffic volumes by making urban public transport more attractive to everyday workers.
This would counter the current trend of private vehicle ownership in South Africa, which is seen as a critical necessity, given the country’s poor state of public transport.
South Africa’s cities face a significant crisis as they experience rapid population growth due to an influx in migration from rural areas to cities. The department said this has resulted in over 35% of the country’s population living in cities, with 21 million people living in the five largest cities.
“More than 57% of GVA (Growth Value Add – a measure of economic concentration, employment and productivity) is centred in these five cities (Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, eThekwini and Cape Town), with Gauteng accounting for 35% total GVA,” it said.
A major overhaul of transport systems is now required to ensure these cities can develop and grow.
The department said that uninhibited residential and informal settlement growth on the outskirts of cities has increased travel distances, made public transport more inefficient and hindered integrated urban planning – making the areas less investor friendly.
“The transport system is fragmented, inefficient and not coping well with rapid urbanisation. Effective, efficient and inclusive urban transport systems are a prerequisite for economic development and social equity and cohesion,” the department said.
For this reason, emphasis needs to be placed on building and rolling out quality public transport, it said.
South Africa has seen a rapid increase in demand for personal vehicle travel, with more middle-class consumers aspiring to have their own car.
When looking at developed counties, most went through a 40-year phase of mass motorisation; however, they have now reached critical levels of peak traffic and are having to do a U-turn and put more money into urban public transport.
“South Africa, similar to many other developing countries and emerging economies, is experiencing a rapid increase in demand for motorised travel, essentially following the same path as developed nations,” the department said.
“Continued high rates of population growth, rapid urbanisation and the aspiration towards consumerism are causing transport needs and demands to expand.
|The evidence is undisputable; attempting to cater for increased volumes of traffic whilst maintaining or increasing current average speeds of motorised traffic requires massive investments and guarantees ever-worsening emissions, fossil fuel dependence, spatial dislocation and severance whilst not offering any assurance of sustained speed improvements,” it said.
In metropolitan areas, only one-third of passengers use formal bus and rail services, with the mini-bus taxi sector transporting two-thirds.
The strategy is to now progressively upgrade and formalise all urban public transport, it said.
The main objectives with public transport are:
- To place 85% of residents of the large cities within 1km walking distance of the integrated public transport networks;
- Linking major origins and destinations (including airports, hospitals, recreational facilities, etc.) to these networks;
- Reducing journey times to a level that is car-competitive (under 60 minutes for door-to-door commuter travel time);
- Implement 16-24-hour services through attaining peak frequencies for priority trunk road and rail corridors at every five minutes, off-peak frequencies every 10-30 minutes and hourly late-night services;
- Building quality infrastructure and vehicles which are universally designed to ensure excellent customer service through protection from the elements, pre-board fare collection, security, comfort, reliability, and universal accessibility in all aspects;
- Monitoring and control of operations through an integrated ticketing system ITS.
The full gazette can be found below:
Recent data from TomTom’s Traffic Index shows that people are spending more time in traffic every year.
According to the index, Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein experience some of the worst traffic in the country, with Pretoria being the most congested city taking 16 minutes to travel 10km, followed by Cape Town and East London at around 15 minutes.
Bloemfontein ranks fourth, with slightly longer rush hour times than Cape Town and East London, taking an average of 14 minutes and 40 seconds to drive 10km.
The table below breaks down the current traffic volumes and times:
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