The IRT infrastructure will be owned by the City of Cape Town, which will also encourage private sector involvement to operate the service, including the existing bus and minibus operators on the various routes. Operators will be paid on the basis of the number of kilometres travelled by the vehicles and not on how many passengers are carried.

Fare collection will be independently operated and managed with quality control oversight by an independent entity. Based on international experience, efficient management will minimise public subsidies of the system's operations.