Cape Town - Opposition parties have challenged the City of Cape Town’s rollout of the MyCiTi service, saying the projected operational shortfall of R52 million for the 2016 financial year showed that the municipality had “bitten off more than it could chew”.
“The reality is that we were not in the transport business and have had to start up our routes from scratch with lots of distractions. But the biggest lesson to learn from all this is that if other bus operators were not offering a service on certain routes, surely the first thought would have been that those routes were not financially viable,” said Demetrius Dudley of the African Christian Democratic Party at yesterday’s council meeting.
The ANC’s Bheki Hadebe said the updated business plan highlighted the service’s financial challenges and was not forwarded to the city’s transport portfolio committee for consideration.
“This item needs to be referred back because it raises serious issues.”
The R52m shortfall for 2016/17 amounted to a substantial loss of R1m a week, he added.
But Brett Herron, a mayoral committee member for Transport, said the city’s objective was to provide public transport, within 500m of 80 percent of the city’s residents.
“If we allow the operators to dictate which routes are profitable, we will leave too many people out.”
The MyCiTi service was therefore based on the authority’s planning, and not operators’ profitability.
He said the projected shortfall was a “worst-case scenario” if the city did not make the adjustments set out in its five-party strategy.
“It is our intention to operate the service at the current high standard in a financially sustainable and viable way by taking steps to make sure there is no real deficit when we get to those outer years.
“These include improving fare revenue and reducing the MyCiTi operating costs,” said Herron in a statement, issued during the meeting.
A number of routes have already been changed, he said.
The number of bus trips during peak periods has been increased to alleviate the waiting times on the busiest routes, and there are fewer bus trips during peak hours on quieter routes and during the off-peak periods.
The Ocean View route was dropped because it was only used by about 60 passengers a day.
“It is this very responsiveness of the MyCiTi service to changes in passenger demand and behaviour that will ensure its future sustainability and we intend to undertake regular reviews in the future. The report of possible outer year deficits must therefore not be taken out of context and not used to create unnecessary hysteria. We have identified potential risk, are reporting on it, and also outlining the steps we are taking to eliminate that risk from materialising.”
Dudley also raised concerns about the different vehicles that were procured for the service. “
We offered a state-of-the-art bus service with stylish buses when in fact we needed to offer a service which got passengers to their destination safely, quickly and affordably. We have buses with different specifications causing the vehicle operator contractors to outlay money for different parts for repairs whereas with one type of bus, one would source parts from one supplier. Standardising the fleet surely was the logical way to go?”
Herron said the city has invested R6.5 billion in the MyCiTi bus service as part of its broader transport plan.
The proposed five-part strategy for the next phases includes a hybrid model where both taxi and MyCiTi operators would operate on MyCiTi routes.
Despite objections, council approved the revised plan that will guide the future implementation of Phase 2 and the N2 Express service.
Cape Argus