Overview
Background
The Western Cape is home to one of the most congested cities in the Southern Hemisphere. The cost of travel is high, and people are located far from commercial hubs. As a result, some public transport commuters are spending up to three hours a day just to get to work. This lack of mobility, connectivity and access has a negative effect on economic productivity and on social cohesion.
Challenges
For more than a generation, the Western Cape’s transport system has failed to keep pace with a growing, increasingly mobile population. Infrastructure investment has been ineffective and slow in coming, leading to traffic gridlock compounded by an unreliable public transport service. The situation is exacerbated by an inefficient urban structure. A mixture of interventions is required; but the transport mandate is fragmented across all three spheres of government (national, provincial, and municipal) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Transport is a complex system. Our first intervention was to get the various elements to engage with each other, working with the relevant institutional structures to get everybody around the same table.
Dr Constantin von der Heyden, Chief Executive Officer
Solutions
GO GEORGE
2013 - present
Powered by the George Integrated Public Transport Network (GIPTN), Go George brings safe, reliable, accessible, affordable and scheduled bus services to the city of George in the Western Cape’s Garden Route district. Funding is received from all three spheres of government, with the major funding from national and provincial governments.
Go George is a partnership between George Municipality, the Western Cape Provincial Government, the National Department of Transport, local minibus taxi operators, and local bus operators. Pegasys overcame the fragmented government mandate to connect these various stakeholders, through a network of relationships built on trust and a deep understanding of the industry.
RESULTS
 |
 |
 |
 |
| 28 | 34 mil | 241 017 | 510 |
| routes, covering a network of 142km |
kilometers travelled in 2020 |
trips operated in 2020 | active bus stops |
 |
 |
 |
| 54 | 35 | 33 |
| standard buses | minibuses | midibuses |
BLUE DOT
2021 - present
Building on the success of the Red Dot project, Blue Dot is a partnership between the Western Cape Provincial Department of Transport and Public Works, the City of Cape Town and the local minibus taxi industry. Pegasys has played a key role in helping various stakeholders to reach a common ground.
As the largest provider of public transport services in the province, minibus taxis deliver an essential service. This incentive programme will use tracking technology to monitor and reward improved driving behaviour and service quality. It aims to improve passenger safety, to achieve transformation of the taxi industry, and to end the illegal operations and conflict that have beset the national taxi industry for many years.
RESULTS
|
 |
| 1 300 | 8 |
| minibus taxis participating | new companies created by the regional taxi councils to participate in the pilot programme |
RED DOT
2020
Red Dot was originally intended as a short-term intervention to provide Western Cape healthcare workers with safe, reliable, socially distanced transport during the peak of the country’s COVID-19 crisis. The Red Dot and Red Dot Lite services helped protect the health and wellbeing of the province’s healthcare workers, reducing their stress while maintaining the capacity of the healthcare system. The service expanded to include transport of citizens to and from quarantine and isolation facilities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It has also been used to transport healthcare workers and members of the public to vaccination sites, and to transport discharged patients from hospital to create space for COVID-19 patients.
Red Dot was a joint initiative of the Western Cape Transport and Public Works Department and the local taxi industry, facilitated by Pegasys. While the intervention solved an immediate need (transporting healthcare workers during the national lockdown), it was designed to be adapted and scaled to broader implementation.
RESULTS
|
|
 |
| 213 000 | 1 100 000 | 22 000 |
| healthcare worker trips between May 2020 and June 2021 |
kilometers travelled |
quarantine and isolation (Q&I) patient trips between May 2020 and June 2021 |
|
|
| 25 | 249 |
| health facilities services across the Western Cape |
vehicles used |
Passenger Rail
2021 - present
As the former Western Cape Minister of Transport and Public Works noted in 2021, “Rail passengers in the Western Cape currently face an impossible situation of having either no rail service or an unreliable service.” The City’s Metrorail service is a good example. With the major routes not operational, long travel times, overcrowding and delayed arrivals undermine workers’ access to economic opportunities.
Pegasys is assisting the Provincial Government in its support of PRASA/Metrorail, particularly in trying to re-establish train services on Cape Town’s Central Line, large stretches of which have been crippled by vandalism and human encroachment on the railway track. Interventions include interim solutions like bus transport and interventions to restore the rail reserve.
STATS
 |
 |
| ± 75 | 76.4 |
| kilometres of rail reserve rehabilitated |
percent of Western Cape train commuters travel for more than 1 hour to get to work |
|
|
| ± 40 | 26 |
| trainsets available | minutes is the difference in mean rail travel time to work in the Western Cape between 2013 (79 minutes) and 2020 (105 minutes) |
NON-MOTORISED TRANSPORT
2021-Present
About 14% of workers in the Western Cape walk all the way to their place of work – and, according to Statistics South Africa’s 2020 National Household Travel Survey, 11.4% walk for more than 10 minutes to reach their first transport, and 50.4% walk for more than five minutes to get to their place of work after taking public transport – often in the early morning hours. Non-motorised transport (NMT), then, is a significant (and overlooked) part of the province’s transport picture.
Pegasys has identified this need for safe walking routes to local transport hubs, and – over the longer term – is working with provincial stakeholders to overcome poor spatial planning by promoting transit-oriented development.
RESULTS
|
 |
 |
| 7 | 2 000+ | 241 017 |
| kilometers of sidewalk put in place |
bicycles distributed | NMT infrastructure projects implemented |
Building of trust is a tricky thing in the transport industry, because it’s very fluid. Leaders change, power dynamics shift. It’s a very broad-based sector, which has formal and informal structures. It’s not a perfect science. Pegasys's strength is that we build close relationships with our partners within the sector; and we understand the needs and dynamics of the industry.
Dr Constantin von der Heyden, Chief Executive Officer
