EKURHULENI executive mayor, Clr Mondli Gungubele, and Gauteng MEC for transport, Ismail Vadi, will on Wednesday launch the transport management system in preparation for the Harambee bus service that will soon be rolled out in the city.
The Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) will electronically monitor all buses at the newly built Transport Management Centre, which is the nerve centre to manage all incidents related to the city’s public transport services on the city’s routes.
The centre is situated on Kelvin Road next to the fire station.
At 56km long, phase 1 of Harambee runs from Tembisa in the north via Kempton Park, OR Tambo International Airport and Boksburg, to Volsoorus in the south.
Trunk route corridors will run along the major mobility spines with branch or feeder routes, ensuring significant area-wide coverage and supplementing the current and future passenger rail network. A trunk route is the main route from one destination to another.
In line with its Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework, these routes link existing and proposed major residential and economic nodes, providing equitable access to opportunities for all Ekurhuleni’s citizens.
In total, seven trunk routes will be implemented over several years in five phases.
A complementary route adds extended, circular routes to the main trunk route. There will be a 4.2km long complementary route between Tembisa Hospital and just north of Tembisa Civic Centre, along Rev RTJ Namane Drive and Andrew Mapheto Drive to DM Marokane Drive.
A feeder route travels from the outer suburbs and joins the trunk route at a key station. In total, there will be 218 feeder bus stops.
Phase 1
Phase 1 of Harambee will run from Tembisa in the north to Vosloorus in the south.
Phase 1A will run from Tembisa to Rhodesfield (initial service planned for mid-2016). Phase 1A operations will include a feeder service to OR Tambo International Airport.
Phase 1A comprises: trunk section running from Tembisa Civic Centre in the north, Rhodesfield in the south via Zuurfontein Road, CR Swart Drive and Pretoria Road.
A northern complementary (trunk extension) service will operate from Tembisa Hospital and integrate with the trunk at Tembisa Civic Centre.
The trunk route will run from Tembisa to Kempton Park, along Andrew Mapheto Drive, then from Kempton Park to OR Tambo International Airport via CR Swart Drive with a complementary route from Kempton Park to Isando via Zuurfontein Road.
Phase 1B will be from Rhodesfield to Boksburg via OR Tambo International Airport.
Phase 1C will run from Boksburg to Vosloorus.
Future cross-border connections of Harambee services have also been proposed. These may include connections to Greenstone, Alexandra, Ivory Park and Midrand.
What is a bus rapid transit system?
A bus rapid transit (BRT) is a bus-based mass transit system. It has a specialised design, services and infrastructure to improve system quality and remove the typical causes of delay.
A BRT has the same level of speed, capacity and passenger comfort and convenience as rail, but can be built at a fraction of the cost and construction time. For most of their routes, the buses have a fully dedicated right of way – bus lanes – to avoid traffic congestion.
In addition, a true BRT system also has:
Alignment in the centre of the road (to avoid typical curb-side delays).
Automatic fare collection at stations (to reduce boarding and alighting delays related to paying the driver).
Station platforms level with the bus floor (to reduce boarding and alighting delay caused by steps).
Bus priority at intersections (to avoid intersection signal delay).
