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Mapping of minibus-taxi network a first for Capetonian commuters

The mapping of the 657 minibus-taxi routes, covering a distance of approximately 8 870 km across Cape Town, was recently done by the private company WhereIsMyTransport.Information about the metro’s minibus-taxi network such as the routes, fares, and frequency of the minibus-taxis to and from the taxi-ranks in Cape Town, Bellville, Wynberg, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha Site C, Nyanga, Retreat, Elsies River, Claremont and Mowbray, is now available through the WhereIsMyTransport platform.This information is integrated with the routes, schedules, and fares for the formal public transport services in Cape Town such as the MyCiTi bus service, the Golden Arrow Bus Service, Metrorail and university shuttles on the WhereIsMyTransport platform.‘Cape Town is the first city in the world to benefit from a dataset which includes all there is to know about the formal and informal public transport modes. We are very excited about the possibilities and solutions that the mapping of the minibus-taxi network offers us and our commuters. The next challenge is figuring out how to give commuters easy access to this information,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member: Transport and Urban Development Authority, Councillor Brett Herron.To best utilise and harness the information that is now available about the minibus-taxi industry in Cape Town, the City’s Transport and Urban Development Authority (TDA) is co-sponsoring the hackathon which is taking place in Woodstock over the weekend. The hackathon is part of the Global Public Transport Hackathon Series. Participants will have access to the public transport data on the WhereIsMyTransport platform and will be tasked with the challenge to create products and solutions that aim to increase the use of public transport in Cape Town; increase the use of multiple modes of transport by making it easier and more appealing to transfer and combine different modes of transport; and by making public transport more attractive, safer, healthier and easier to understand.The TDA is also represented on the judges’ panel which is to judge and announce the overall winners on Sunday 5 March 2017.‘Minibus-taxis are by far the most common mode of public transport in Cape Town. Thousands of commuters board a minibus-taxi every day of their lives to get where they need to be. This is remarkable when one considers that the minibus-taxi industry provides an unscheduled transport service and that there is no central source of information about the routes and frequency of the service in the public realm,’ said Councillor Herron.One of the TDA’s biggest challenges is to integrate the minibus-taxi routes with the other modes of public transport in Cape Town. Commuters have identified this lack of interchangeability or flexibility between the minibus-taxis, trains, MyCiTi bus service and GABS as a big frustration.‘We would therefore want the hackathon participants to come up with innovative solutions on how we can use the information about the minibus-taxi network to improve the integration between the informal and formal public transport modes in Cape Town. These solutions must make it easier for commuters to plan their routes across different modes – minibus-taxi, bus and rail – and must also convince more Capetonians to make use of public transport in general,’ said Councillor Herron.An integrated public transport system where commuters can transfer effortlessly from one mode to another in reaching their destinations is key to a modern and efficient world-class city. ‘We are excited to see the innovations that the participants will come up with to empower the people of Cape Town to plan their journeys and to reach their destinations with ease,’ said Councillor Herron. End

2017-03-02T22:00:00Z

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