Cape Town - Dogged by capacity and funding constraints, the City of Cape Town’s Dial-a-Ride service is being reassessed to find a more sustainable model.
But this review, to “determine the eligibility of all Dial-a-Ride applicants”, will only be done by the end of November.
“The city does keep a record of those who have requested to use the system on a regular basis, or daily. However, due to capacity and funding constraints, these additional regular users can unfortunately not be accommodated at this stage,” said mayoral committee member for transport Brett Herron.
While there are about 6 000 potential users, the service currently only provides transport for about one-sixth of these passengers on a regular and ad hoc basis.
This means that there are about 5 000 disabled passengers, such as Tina Delacruz, who may be unable to get to work while they wait for a spot.
Delacruz applied for the Dial-a-Ride service in November 2011 and went for all the assessments required by the city to be considered for the city’s public transport service for disabled passengers.
Although not confined to a wheelchair, Delacruz walks with great difficulty and with assistance. Using conventional public transport would be difficult for her. The mother of two has been unable to get transport to her work at a call centre in the city centre and risks losing her job.
“This means that I don’t get paid. Why is more not being done? Surely the taxi associations could be involved?”
Delacruz said she was told that the city did not have enough money for the service and that she would have to go on to the waiting list.
The Western Cape Association for People with Disabilities confirmed that several of its members had complained about the waiting list. But disabled people who worked did get priority over those wanting to use Dial-a-Ride for errands.
Herron said the city would adjust its list of potential users once the assessment of their eligibility was done at the end of November.
“Due to the current operational model, the Dial-a-Ride service has a limited capacity to serve the needs of current and future users and we want to explore other options available to us,” said Herron.
The city’s budget for the service this year is R21.5 million, of which R10m is funded by the Western Cape government.
Cape Argus