A survey conducted by the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) has placed Johannesburg near the top of municipalities in Gauteng in all basic service categories namely piped water, refuse collection, access to sanitation, energy and transport.

The most pertinent GCRO findings on Johannesburg were that 93% of households had access to piped water, 91% of households had access to either a flush toilet or waterborne toilets, while less than 5% of households did not have access to regular refuse collection.

Further, the survey also found that there had been a 72% level of satisfaction with dwellings, 82% level of satisfaction with water, a 79% level of satisfaction with sanitation and an 85% level of satisfaction with waste removal.

GCRO executive director Professor David Everatt said the biggest areas of concerns raised by residents were public safety, public transport and access to economic opportunities as well as the quality of the customer experience when they interact with the city.

The survey shows that access to public transport in Johannesburg was “reasonably good” with more than 75% of households living within a 10-minute walk of a public transport service. Although 81.1% of bus users were either “satisfied” or “very satisfied, the number of people making use of the service remained low.

“The expansion of Rea Vaya, the city’s bus rapid transit system, will increase the popularity of public transport in years to come,” Johannesburg city manager Trevor Fowler noted.

Meanwhile, the survey showed some positive results in relation to billing. Fifty-one per cent of Johannesburg residents were satisfied with the cost of municipal services and 32% dissatisfied. The rest were undecided.

Fifty per cent were satisfied with the quality of billing and 31% dissatisfied. These results were better for white residents (with 64% satisfied) than for African residents (with only 47% satisfied with their bills) and were better than for most other municipalities in Gauteng.

Fowler said issues of concern raised in the survey were receiving priority attention in ongoing city initiatives.

To manage concerns about public safety, the city recently launched a comprehensive plan for visible, ward-based policing – Joburg 10 Plus.

Teams of Johannesburg Metro Police Department officers are allocated to each ward in the city and will work together with other departments and agencies in a multi-agency approach to counter crime and other social ills, such as illegal dumping, vandalism of infrastructure, urban decay and by-law infringements.

The GCRO is a joint research initiative between the Gauteng provincial government and the Universities of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand.

Almost 17 000 respondents in Gauteng were interviewed during the 2011 Quality of Life Survey, from every municipal ward in Johannesburg.

The survey was conducted through interviews with residents 18 years and older, randomly sampled across the province.