Pretoria - Government recognises that accessibility to affordable, safe and reliable transport remains a challenge in certain areas, said Transport Minister Dipuo Peters.
She said according to the 2013 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), the percentage of households who walk more than 15 minutes to get access to public transport increased from 10.9% in 2003 to 14.4% in 2013.
The minister was speaking on Thursday at the release of the NHTS, which was conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) between February to March 2013 throughout the country, on behalf of the Department of Transport.
The survey also found that the percentage of learners who walk for more than 60 minutes to school increased to 5.7% from 4.8% in 2003.
“This is a serious predicament and we should do our utmost to deliver on the National Scholar Transport Policy,” she said at the release of the results.
According to the survey most travelling occurred from Monday to Friday, while it also showed that 81.4% of the SA population undertook a trip in 7 days prior to the survey.
The survey found that 36.2% of workers leave for work between 6am and 7am.
It also found that there was an increase in the percentage of households who use taxi from the last NHTS, which was conducted in 2003. It found that the percentage of households who used taxis went up from 59% in 2003 to 69%, while households using buses increased from 16.6% in 2003 to 20.2% in 2013.
“Taxis are the most used mode of transport. Across SA, 69% of people use taxis to get to work,” said Statistician General Pali Lehohla.
Minister Peters said that the department will soon host a taxi summit.
The figure also increased for those using trains up from 5.8% to 9.9%.
“Gauteng dominates quite predominantly in travel at 25%, meaning that 25% of travel occurred in Gauteng compared to 2.3% in the Northern Cape. Of course Gauteng has the lion’s share of the population,” said the Statistician General, as he presented the results on Thursday.
The age group that was found to the travel the most was 26 to 40 and the 41-64 group.
“So it’s your working age group that travels the most,” he added.
When coming to the perception about transport in the country, the most problems mentioned nationally were the poor condition of roads, rude drivers and overloading.
Minister Peters noted that spending by households on transport has more than doubled. “Household spending on public transport is high despite government’s efforts to reduce the burden by providing subsidised bus and passenger rail services which costs the fiscus over R5 billion per annum,” she said.
According to the minister spending on transport is above the national objective, exceeding 10% of households’ disposable income.
“We do recognise that accessibility to affordable, safe and reliable transport remains a challenge in certain areas,” she said.
However, the minister noted that the landscape in the country has over the last 20 years improved with initiatives like the Gautrain and the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
The observations and conclusions arrived at by the NHTS call for serious attention and dedicated effort to move the country forward.
The main aim of the NHTS 2013 is to gain an insight into the travel patterns and transport problems of the people of SA. – SAnews.gov.za
