How much it costs to catch a minibus taxi on major routes in Gauteng

Transport platform, WhereIsMyTransport has announced the completion of its largest data collection project to date – the informally-run public transport networks of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

According to the data collected through the project, informally run minibus taxis serve around 70% of the region’s population.

WhereIsMyTransport’s 40 data collectors spent just under 6 weeks tracking the networks, collecting 2,813 unique routes, covering 44,352 kms, and finding an average journey cost of R13.13.

The company used technologies developed in-house which enable data to be reliably collected and verified, including a mobile application for capturing route data and information such as on- and off-peak timing, common stopping points, fares and frequency.

Data collection teams were made up of those who live and work locally, ensuring extensive public transport knowledge and valuable qualitative inputs, the group said.

“This data collection milestone is significant not just because of the task of digitalising informally-run public transport information in an urban mega region, but because it means that unparalleled public transport data is now available from all of South Africa’s major cities,” said WhereIsMyTransport’ CEO, Devin de Vries.

How much it costs to take a taxi 

“Our data collectors ride the entire minibus taxi route from origin to destination, and this fare is recorded in our data collection app,” team lead, Graeme Leighton told BusinessTech.

“For circular routes the (where the origin and destination is the same place) the data collector rides the entire route and the fare for the outward bound journey is recorded.”

“Every single route in the database has fare information. The fare information is for the entire length of the route only.”

Leighton and the WhereIsmyTransport team provided data for the following routes, as well as the fares commuters can expect to pay.

Read: The City of Cape Town’s incredible plan to make mini-bus taxis better than Uber