South America may be helping South Africa with a football game plan for 2010 World Cup, but that continent's lasting legacy could be a world-renowned integrated public transport system that is being implemented in local cities.
Known as bus rapid transit (BRT), the model will have a significant effect on South Africa's urban landscape long after the last tears have been shed by the supporters of losing teams.
BRT is a high-frequency bus service running on dedicated lanes that mesh to form a network of trunk and feeder routes. It incorporates closed stations at regular intervals.
Cities manage the routes and collect fares, usually via a smart card system and a control centre, while private operators are contracted to supply the bus operations by vehicle kilometre, removing the incentive to chase after passenger fares. Under ideal conditions, a new trunk route is rolled out every three years until an entire city is interconnected.
But BRT is much more than an efficient bus transport system. It is a low-cost alternative to rail that creates a backbone for municipal spatial planning, simultaneously pulling private minibus operators into a formalised transport system and reducing urban carbon emissions. When it works, it has the potential to transform cities.
BRT was first implemented in Curitiba, Brazil, but became popular a decade ago after former Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa, determined to reclaim city space from cars for people, started driving its implementation in the Colombian capital.
Having quelled taxi violence and opened up the city to a majority of households without cars, the Transmilenio project now carries about 1.5 million Bogotanos every day.
It has inspired projects around the world, most recently in China and India, but also in developed nations. It now underpins transport plans in an estimated 60 cities globally.
In South Africa it has won support across the political spectrum as the metros of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay implement first phases.
Johannesburg and Cape Town will employ Penalosa and other key members of the Transmilenio project as consultants for their BRT projects.
"Obviously, we need to guard against thinking there is a single technological silver bullet for our problems," says Jeremy Cronin, the chairman of parliament's transport portfolio committee. "But BRT does have many advantages."
For developing countries, the low capital cost of BRT relative to rail is a particularly attractive feature. The system is relatively cheap because it uses existing road infrastructure, with modifications for dedicated bus lanes, curb realignment and roadside stations.
"BRT is a way for developing countries to approximate the efficiencies of urban rail at a fraction of the cost," says Ibrahim Seedat, a public transport strategy director in the national transport department.
Seedat estimates that light rail systems cost between eight and 15 times more than BRT per kilometre of infrastructure. In bigger South African cities, the infrastructural costs for BRT are estimated at $3 million (R22.2 million) a kilometre.
The City of Johannesburg will spend more than R2.5 billion on infrastructure for 122km of a first-phase BRT system along a route that bisects the city from Soweto in the southeast to the suburbs of the northeast, says Bob Stanway, the city's BRT project manager.
The national treasury, which is providing dedicated public transport grants for 2010 preparations, will fund about 90 percent of these costs.
Phillip Harrison, Johannesburg's executive director of planning, says his department accepts BRT as the backbone of urban spatial structure.
Johannesburg has emerged as something of a BRT champion as it prepares to implement services along a portion of its first trunk route in April, ahead of the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in mid-2009.
"If Johannesburg gets it right, at least we won't all be having to fly to Bogota to see a case study," quips Cronin.
Cape Town aims to use the World Cup to leverage a basic 38km BRT network in the inner city, a link between the central business district (CBD) and the airport, and a portion of the west coast. Another 20km, some of which may be ready by 2010, will capture part of the Cape Flats and the southern suburbs.
Maddie Mazaza, Cape Town's transport director, says the latest capital cost estimate for the first phase of BRT is R1.8 billion, of which an approved R836 million will come from the national government.
A detailed plan is due to be presented to the city council next month after the initial go-ahead was given in March. The plans have been integrated and aligned with urban planning.
Nelson Mandela Bay aims to complete a BRT corridor in time for the World Cup. The 40km route will incorporate 15km of exclusive BRT lanes, linking Port Elizabeth to former township areas in the north, and covering an area around the stadium.
It has received R500 million of a R1 billion grant from the treasury for construction, which is due to start at the end of this month, says Keith Mitchell, a senior technologist for public transport systems planning at the metro.
Tshwane's plans for a BRT system were advanced at one stage, but the project has fallen behind the curve. The metro is reliably understood to be in discussions with the transport department about fast-tracking a first phase by 2010, which would include a link from the Pretoria CBD to the Loftus stadium and nearby suburbs.
It is understood that Durban will soon begin a detailed network operational plan with the aim of implementing BRT in the second wave of cities after 2010.
Nelson Mandela metro is the furthest along in its negotiations with local bus and taxi operators. In Johannesburg, agreement has been reached between the city council and operators to start talks. Cape Town hopes to initiate talks within a few months.
The success of BRT hinges on whether bus and taxi operators will agree to restructure their businesses to form companies to negotiate performance-based contracts with metros.
In the Nelson Mandela metro, the subsidised Algoa Bus Company and taxi operators have agreed on a structure to form a joint venture. The metro has been talking to taxi operators about an integrated transport plan since 2004.
Mitchell's advice for other cities embarking on talks with operators is "total transparency and involvement at every point".
Most cities could have done with more preparation time, but the 2010 catalyst has set the ball rolling early. Tight timing is forcing Johannesburg to place a pre-emptive order for 1 200 buses worth about R2 billion to ensure it will have a fleet to implement BRT by next year - even though it would have been preferable for operators to order and own the buses.
The bus order irks Sicelo Mabaso, the chairman of Top Six Taxi Management, which has agreed to start negotiations with the city. "They can't be referee and player," says Mabaso, who is also the chairman of the National Taxi Alliance (NTA). "The city needs to regulate, not … compete with us."
It is unclear whether Johannesburg will hold on to the buses or find a way to transfer them to contracted operators.
Mabaso says taxi operators will buy into BRT only if the system leaves them in a better financial position. This will be determined by the value of the contracts negotiated with cities.
In Johannesburg, Stanway estimates the contracts to be worth R5 billion over 10 years.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, who believes BRT will eliminate the need for a R480 million provincial bus subsidy in the Western Cape, says that the most important incentive for taxi operators would be "more passengers and more profit".
Philip van Reyneveld, a transport consultant to the Cape Town project, says BRT will not only expand the market for public transport, but make operations more efficient because more trips can be done in peak periods, reducing fleet sizes.
While Mabaso believes the negotiations with metros will be tough, he accepts that the changing nature of taxi clientele acts as the impetus to upgrade the taxi industry's mode of operation. "It won't be easy for us as taxi operators to compete with BRT, which is a faster, subsidised form of transport."
BRT is usually not subsidised at the operational level, although the infrastructural spending on dedicated lanes, enclosed stations and a smart card system could be considered a capital subsidy. Projects can also apply for registration with the UN's Clean Development Mechanism and earn carbon credits arising from lower emissions as car passengers switch to public transport.
Cronin says negotiators must avoid the tendency to speak only to representatives of big taxi associations such as the SA National Taxi Council and the NTA. While broad consultation with these bodies is important, local operators have to be engaged.
"It is a very robust, individualistic, entrepreneurial sector," he says. "If we are going to get public transport to work, we need to devolve."
If there has been a point of paralysis for public transport in South Africa, it probably centres on the thorny issue of devolution of power. Political squabbling over the extent of municipal versus provincial control has created a hiatus in planning and a lack of accountability for a function that, going by global experience, usually lies in the municipal sphere.
Spatial planning
Bus rapid transit (BRT) could have a "serious impact" on property prices, according to Patrick O'Shea, the chief executive of property group Engel & Völkers. He reckons that property prices would be driven eventually by access to transport, but says it is difficult to estimate the general effect on property prices near routes without detailed knowledge of the supporting infrastructure and mix of development.
Generally, investment around BRT precincts tends to encourage higher-quality land use and improve property prices, by attracting people back to city areas that may have been run-down previously.
Successful nodes require facilities near stations for both residents and commuters: for instance, adequate public lighting, high-quality pedestrian boulevards, landscaping, greenery, bicycle lanes and storage.
Johannesburg's ambitious attempt to create a pedestrian and cycling culture falls under its Rea Veya ("we are going") project. The first BRT corridor identified for development is between Sunninghill and Parktown.
The city council will offer incentives in the form of additional rights for a better mix of residential, commercial and community services; and maximum pedestrian and bicycling access at development nodes around bus stations, according to Phillip Harrison, Johannesburg's executive director of planning. The city hopes to raise residential densities along BRT trunk routes from about 20 units to 80 units a hectare.
Private developers have been showing strong interest in the Sunninghill-Parktown node, but Harrison and his team want to ensure that the interest is also spread along other parts of the network. The city plans to spend about R1.8 billion on basic infrastructure along the corridor.
Nelson Mandela Bay metro has also attracted developer interest as it rolls out its integrated public transport plans, which include a large station area in the central business district with commercial space.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille says an established BRT system "is something that is needed in Cape Town to reduce urban sprawl and increase economic growth". - Ingi Salgado
Whose job is it anyway?
The territorial scrap between provinces and municipalities over public transport may be resolved after the National Land Transport Bill goes through parliament this year.
The original intention behind the legislation is to more clearly define city-driven public transport, but provincial governments, perturbed by the devolution of power to city governments, have introduced amendments that give MECs veto rights over a wide range of functions, says transport consultant Philip van Reyneveld.
Jeremy Cronin, the chairman of parliament's transport portfolio committee, puts it rather politely: "One of the challenges is that national government, provincial governments and the big metros, intentionally or otherwise, get in the way of each other a great deal in South Africa."
While much is often made of the acrimonious relationship between the ANC-controlled Western Cape government and the Democratic Alliance-led coalition in Cape Town, Cronin points out that the challenges of getting effective integration of planning applies when the ANC controls the city too.
Van Reyneveld, formerly Cape Town's chief financial officer under an ANC-led administration, says the city and province have tried for many years to work together on these issues. "Generally, there was good faith from all sides, but it just never seemed to move forward."
In metro-congested Gauteng, power sharing issues of a different nature are arising due to the need for a seamless public transport system across the boundaries of the Ekhuruleni, Tshwane and Johannesburg metros. Initial talks between the metros are understood to be taking place, and require a co-ordinating role for the Gauteng provincial government. Without co-ordinated planning, serious congestion points could emerge at the edge of bus rapid transport (BRT) corridors between cities. In fact, with the application of common standards for smart cards, vehicles and station platform heights, there is no reason future BRT services could not overlap across the networks of neighbouring cities. - Ingi Salgado
Published on the web by Business Report on July 30, 2008.
