{"id":193264,"date":"2017-08-18T11:26:08","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T09:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=193264"},"modified":"2017-08-21T08:00:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T06:00:03","slug":"this-is-what-all-south-african-taxis-will-have-to-look-like-in-6-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/193264\/this-is-what-all-south-african-taxis-will-have-to-look-like-in-6-months\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what all new South African taxis will have to look like in 6 months"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an unusual move the department of transport has issued a proclamation stating that all new South African taxis must be colour-coded and look exactly the same within the next six months.<\/p>\n

The proclamation, which can be found here<\/a><\/strong>, states that:<\/p>\n

No person shall operate a minibus or midibus, the date of first registration of which is after a date calculated as six months after the date of publication of these regulations in the Gazette, on a public road for a minibus taxi-type service unless-<\/p>\n

(a) the standard colour of the vehicle is white<\/strong>; and
\n(b) stickers depicting the South African national flag<\/strong> are displayed on the vehicle in accordance with sub-regulation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These stickers featuring the South African flag may be\u00a0no larger than 300 millimetres in height and 300 millimetres in length; must be affixed to the vehicle and kept displayed on the side of both front doors below the window level of the vehicle; and must\u00a0depict the flag correctly displayed as prescribed in Schedule 1 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The regulations also severely cut down on the advertising allowed on the vehicles and state that no other liveries (paint jobs) are allowed on the vehicles.<\/p>\n

These changes apply only to minibuses and midibuses used for minibus taxi -type services, and do not apply to any other type of vehicles used for any other type of public transport service.<\/p>\n

Any driver who contravenes or fails to comply with these Regulations is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months.<\/p>\n

Taxi bosses unhappy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking to BusinessTech, South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) spokesperson\u00a0Thabisho Molelekwa confirmed that government had been in discussion with the taxi councils about the changes.<\/p>\n

While the council enjoyed a healthy relationship with the minister, they didn’t necessarily always agree on issues, he said.<\/p>\n

Molelekwa said that the choice of white as a colour was to help create a “brand identity” around taxis in South Africa – similar to London’s black cabs.<\/p>\n

The bigger issue is likely to be with the revised advertising rules, he said – although he hadn’t had time to fully study the proclamation.<\/p>\n

“A taxi is a business product and these men need to make money,” Molelekwa said. “By taking the marketing from us, the government is likely to stop the taxi industry from growing further.”<\/p>\n

\n

The Department of Transport had not responded at the time of writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read:<\/strong>\u00a0Gauteng will soon introduce cashless cards for taxis and other public transport<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an unusual move the department of transport has issued a proclamation stating that all new South African taxis must be colour-coded and look exactly the same within the next six months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":118612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26,7752],"class_list":["post-193264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline","tag-santaco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193264"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193438,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193264\/revisions\/193438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}