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WRITTEN BY JACK SLATER

PIOTRANS

0027 11 988 6558

WWW.PIOTRANS.CO.ZA

IN 2006 Johannesburg City took the decision to become a fully-fledge Bus Rapid Transit system called Rea Vaya.

CATCHING BUSES AND

CHANGING A NATION

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Rea Vaya reached a

major milestone in

February this year

when the Taxi Operators

Investment Companies formally

took control of the BRTs Bus

Operating Company- PioTrans

(PTY) LTD. It was another first

in this landmark project. Rea

Vaya is the first BRT system in

South Africa, in the beginning

taxi operators, Metrobus and

other public transport operators

worked alongside each other

in a congested, mostly informal

landscape. With Rea Vaya

many private vehicle users and

switched to the bus.

Something only a South African would appreciate, having a safe

public transport system that everyone can use has made a significant

change for every road user.

The main challenges for public transport in Johannesburg was

that the poor lived far away from work and had to spend more money

on transport, congestion and roads resulted in longer travel time,

congestion in the inner, lack of access for disabled commuters that

the government historically had put very little money towards public

transport, and problems with regulation of the large and broad based

taxi industry.

Rea Vaya changed all of that.

It has been a huge transformation and has triggered a massive shift

among the members of the informal transport sector by developing

and providing viable, practical and above all safer solutions.

Taxi related deaths as recently as the last decade had peaked

with thousands of people being killed either through gun violence

The main challenges for public transport in Johannesburg was that the poor lived far away from work and had to spend more money on transport, congestion and roads resulted in longer travel time, congestion in the inner city, lack of access for disabled commuters that the government historically had put very little money towards public transport, and problems with regulation of the large and broad based taxi industry.

Nota Bene (Mercedes-Benz)

PIOTRANS

Benefitting from high level buy ins and partnerships especially from the historically violent and turbulent mini-bus taxi industry, it made its implementation possible and began as a starter service with 40 buses on 30 August 2009.Since then things have improved significantly and been well received by commuters.

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Investment Companies, owned by over 300 taxi operators are

now in charge of PioTrans LTD and have a 12 year Bus Operating

Contract- they also scrapped 585 taxis in order to be able to become

shareholders of the company.

Big Developments134 buses have been sourced from Mercedes-Benz South Africa’s

(MBSA’s) Sandown Motor Holdings who won the tender earlier this

year. This is to supply the necessary size for the roll-out of the 18 km

Phase 1B of Johannesburg’s Rea Vaya bus rapid transit (BRT) system.

Valued at more than R300-million the Rea Vaya phase 1B covers

ten stations, passing through Noordgesig, New Canada, Pennyville,

Bosmont, Coronationville, Newclare, Westbury, Westdene, Melville,

Auckland Park and Parktown.

“MBSA’s bus and coach unit will supply the bus chassis for the

134-unit requirement, divided into ninety-three 12 m feeder buses,

and forty-one 18 m raised floor, articulated buses to be used on the

trunk routes,” says MBSA commercial vehicles bus and coach brand

additional jobs on the bus line and the– all of them wheelchair friendly

– will use clean-burning Euro 5 engines and feature fully automatic

Voith transmissions. The first Rea Vaya Phase-1B unit is expected to

be completed this month.

“We will start assembling the chassis and releasing them to the

body builder from the first week in June through to the second half

of October,” says Ansorge. “The plan is to assemble up to ten chassis

per week.”

The vehicles are expected to have a life cycle of 12 years.

Sandown Motor Holdings has also offered the City of Johannesburg

a maintenance, driver training and fleet management proposal, which

is still under discussion.

Henry believes Sandown Motor Holdings won the contract to

supply the buses as it offered a “good price and a very attractive

delivery schedule”. Sandown is also a Level 2 black economic-

empowered company.

By providing traffic solutions within the major cities of South

Africa Rea Vaya have opened up the gates to a new level of economic

prosperity.

manager Dr Dirk Ansorge.

Marcopolo South Africa will

supply the bus bodies. Local

content on the bus bodies is

expected to exceed 80%.

MBSA bus and coach

national sales manager Shane

Henry notes that South African

content on the bus chassis will

reach around 30% by volume,

and include local components

such as tyres, wiring looms and

fuel tanks.

The bus chassis and power

trains come from Brazil, with

local completely knocked-down

assembly taking place at MBSA’s

East London plant.

Rea Vaya will create 40

PIOTRANS

Valued at more than R300-million the Rea Vaya phase 1B covers ten stations, passing through Noordgesig, New Canada, Pennyville, Bosmont, Coronationville, Newclare, Westbury, Westdene, Melville, Auckland Park and Parktown.

between drivers and gangs or

through accidents caused by

vehicles that were not road-

worthy. For South Africans this

had become an unfortunate way

of life. “Taxi Violence” became

the dirty secret of the SA roads

that very few people outside of

the country knew about or could

believe. It had reached a point

where dozens of people dying in

a taxi crash, due to the taxi having

folded cardboard as brakepads

or being overloaded with up

to thirty people crammed into

one mini-bus, no longer made it

to the news. A solution was in

desperate need.

Nine Taxi Operators