To date, around 33 000 minibus taxis of an estimated fleet of 135 000 vehicles have been scrapped under government’s taxi recapitalisation programme (TRP), says Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin.

The programme offers a R55 000 allowance to owners to scrap their old vehicles and buy new, safer taxis.

The TRP was initiated in 1999.

It has already changed colours once, in 2004, when it moved from a bidding process open to all vehicle manufacturers, to the current enforcement of minimum safety criteria.

In 2004 it was promised that the current scheme would take seven years (2011) to complete, at a cost of  R7,7-billion, up from the original budget of R4-billion to R6-billion.

The then Transport Minister Jeff Radebe noted later, in 2007, that an “acceleration of the TRP” should ensure that 80% of the taxi fleet would be recapitalised by the 2009/10 financial year.

THE TAXI NO LONGER THE ONLY ANSWER

“Going back to our conceptualisation [of the programme], we were perhaps over-prescriptive,” Cronin tells Engineering News Online.

“We made the assumption that the vehicle was all important; that the vehicle was the only problem.”

“You have all of this irrationality in the [taxi] system,” he explains.

“Drivers must bring in R400 a day – no questions asked – and then also pay petrol. The rest of the money they can keep. This is what leads to overloading and speeding, and the vehicles’ deteriorating quality.”

Cronin notes that the national taxi fleet will indeed be safer if all 130 000 vehicles were replaced, but that it “will not have a massive impact on public transport.

“The vehicles are not the problem, their operation is.”

He adds that some taxi owners are simply unwilling to reinvest in a new vehicle, including some poorer hand-to-mouth operators.

Cronin says government has now changed its approach, and that it wants to align the TRP with the process of integrated public transport planning taking place on a municipal level.

“We are looking at city-lead planning and regulation of public transport, instead of this happening on a provincial and national government level. We are trying to devolve funding to create integrated transport systems using buses, Metrorail, taxis and bus rapid transport systems (BRTs).

“These systems are not ‘talking’ to each other effectively.”

Some taxi operators are, however, opposed to the implementation of BRTs in South Africa’s major cities, as they believe it will shrink their business.

Johannesburg can attest to this, facing vocal and sometimes violent opposition when it first rolled out its BRT system in 2009, and also now, as it attempts to expand the system.

Cronin confirms that government is indeed pushing ahead with the TRP, but notes that most of national government’s public transport spending will be targeted at the roll-out of integrated transport systems.

BRTs EASY TARGETS

Apart from the implementation of BRTs in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Cape Town, the newly issued taxi operating licenses are also viewed as problematic by many in the industry, as they used to be granted for life – some were literally inherited by the families of taxi owners – while they are now only valid for a seven-year period.

“This means taxis now effectively have a working life of seven years.

“BRTs are the upfront target, but there are a lot of things behind it,” says Cronin.

He says government’s priority now is to create a “more holistic public transport system”, rather than simply pushing ahead with the TRP at all costs.

Cronin says there is a discussion underway if the R55 000 scrapping allowance should be increased.