Johan van Schalkwyk says he is sorely disappointed with the MyCiTi bus service along his route.
Cape Town - Everywhere we currently walk, look, read, chat or log-in we hear the same echoes of #Marikana, #AlBashir, #Nkandla and #Eskom #LoadShedding, but there is something fundamentally wrong with the ethics and mindsets of people across the spectrum of our colourful South Africa:
If a taxpayer-funded project and a paid-for scheduled transport service cannot keep to a set schedule, the basic rules of commuting or offer decent replies to complaints, how on earth can we expect the president of our country to release the #Marikana report on time, respect a court order or answer to the public in Parliament? [Ed’s note: This piece was written before the Marikana Report was released on Thursday.]
This is the documentation of my daily commute on the City of Cape Town’s “scheduled and reliable” MyCiTi bus service.
Let me start by making a statement: “I am not ‘grateful’ for the arrival of a delayed bus”. It is a paid- for service. And if I pay for a service to pick up and drop off from point A to B within a set schedule, I want that specific service.
Not whatever you offer me; because the promise of the transaction is then broken. Rather remove your promises of service delivery and lower your fees so that I can be “grateful” for poor service.
So, what is my paid-for expectation?
* Make use of a scheduled bus service that arrives and drops me on time (within its own published schedule) to ensure I meet my professional commitments.
* Have a safe and secure commute from A to B.
* Have a reasonable comfortable commute within the set of rules provided.
I would also need to state that I base my expectation on historical value of the service, my personal encounters with the initial roll-out service since 2010 and the promises made by continuous advertising, printed material and the brand positioning.
But what I get instead is as follows:
Currently residing about 800m from the 215 routes’ Gie South station, I start my daily commute with a brisk walk – leaving my front door at 6.40am to walk to the station and get on to the scheduled 6.49am 215 from Gie South to Wood.
From the moment I leave I have a clear view of the route and station and would know if the 215 is a few minutes early, which would require a short jog to the station. I arrive and wait at the station from about 6.47am. Most mornings, the first bus since leaving my front door only rocks up at 7.05am or later with a printed and electronic schedule confirming a bus at 6.39am, 6.49am, 6.59am, 7.09am etc.
When it finally does arrive delayed (and now with a fuller and longer station queue than expected), the bus is already crammed full and no one can safely board the bus to get on their way to Wood station. The 215 bus is overloaded and unsafe. School kids are pushed against doors with clearly marked yellow floor lines.
Herewith an extract from the MyCiTi passenger rules:
9 (b). No person may board a MyCiTi vehicle that is already at full capacity.
Herewith an extract from the MyCiTi instructions regarding safety on MyCiTi premises:
3 (c). Passengers may not stand on stairs or in areas marked as no-standing areas.
So, 20 minutes into my daily commute, I have had two missed bus schedules and one overloaded and unsafe opportunity.
But hey, don’t stress – all of a sudden at 7.11am, three buses arrive at once – but there are no passengers to board as they all were already “so grateful” for a bus that they risked their lives to Wood station, because they didn’t know when the next bus would actually arrive.
Thankful that I might still be in time to meet my professional commitments in the Cape Town CBD, I now have the grateful opportunity to board any of the three abundantly empty buses from Gie South to Wood. This is a short but good ride.
My perception of the service increases during this four to five minute commute due to the good-looking bus, well-behaved commuters and great check-in/out technology. This is short-lived.
I reach Wood station and find an extra-long queue waiting to board a T01 bus from Wood to the Civic Centre. Now, the problem here is not the queue but the fact that nine out of 10 buses coming from its starting point in Dunoon is, once again, full to capacity and overloaded.
This means that any of the 21 stations that need to be serviced on this route with this one bus every 15 minutes, leaving from Dunoon to the Waterfront via the Civic Centre, will have massive delays affecting all passengers wanting to board a safe bus to commute to point B (that they have paid for).
When the door opens, one or two passengers struggle and push to get out of the cramped bus and the station manager shouts (when the bus is already full): “Standing space!”. At this call to action, the queue disperses and every grateful queue-standing-member pushes themselves into the crowd and shouts and screams as the doors start to squash them, as the bus closes for departure. The sensible few, not grateful for an “if and when” bus, keep on waiting patiently in the queue at Wood.
There is a sigh of relief when for some bizarre reason you see another two buses marked “Waterfront via Civic Centre” and it’s not even two minutes since the previous life-endangering commute left Wood – and the next bus was actually only scheduled for 10 minutes later.
And there is no measure of the schedule for anyone in the queue as none of the electronic technological advanced mechanisms paid for with taxpayers’ money is in working condition. And this is no joke: the screens on all of these electronic schedule monitors have an error quote stating: “Wow, this is embarrassing”.
But, no surprise to any sensible awaiting passenger, the next bus for the Civic Centre looks worse than the previous two. “At least,” we all joke, “the bus is on schedule”. By this time I have had about a 30- to 40-minute commute and am no further than 3km from my front door.
All of a sudden my phone vibrates. The @MyCitiBus social media team have replied to my questions about the bus schedule sent at around 6.52am: “We will forward your concern to our operations department”. As a marketing professional, my advice to MyCiTi is: not all automated responses serve to better your declining image of a professional service. Some personal touch and a real response increases your brand profile so much better.
How about: “Yikes Johan. Thanks for the heads-up. Hang tight – our team confirms a bus is on its way in one minute”. But nevertheless, I know that some team of social media community managers sits in a room somewhere with warm and cosy jackets branded with the MyCiTi logo, sipping on some taxpayer sponsored coffee, replying nonsense to frustrated passengers wanting real-time info.
Finally, 45 minutes into my only 3km commute, I get a decent spot on a bus from Wood to the Civic Centre to complete my journey. And I will admit, I do so looking sadly through the bus window at the folk standing in the same situation at the next 14 bus stations: waiting to start their professional day on time with a paid-for red MyCiTi card in hand.
The leader of the DA, Mmusi Maimane, recently tweeted: “I have officially been sitting in Jozi traffic for now an hour travelling 10km. We need an integrated public transport system. #Vision2029”. My advice to him is: if your political party wants to run the country with its #Vision2029, make sure your City of Cape Town administration can at the very least run an efficient bus service!
I conclude with the following extracts from the MyCiTi Rules which bind the passenger to pay for the service and in turn have the commitment from the MyCiTi team pledge:
We strive to provide:
* Clean, comfortable, safe, frequent, punctual and affordable services.
* Clear signage and Customer information.
* A safe and secure environment.
Customers must comply with the MyCiTi Rules:
* Pay your way – always travel with a Ticket or a loaded Smartcard.
* Johan Van Schalkwyk is a young marketing professional (working in the CBD) with a great interest in politics, everyday life and the future of the country (dreaming about making a difference as a ward councillor sometime soon). He meticulously observes daily life in great detail to translate the perceptions of the current state of affairs in layman’s terms.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Times