80% of South Africans depend on public transport. It is estimated that as many as 13% of all South Africans are "stranded" – that is, they do not have access to or cannot afford existing public transport services.

Over the medium-term, the current practice of paying subsidies to buses and commuter rail in exclusion of the transport industry will be redesigned towards a public transport subsidy scheme driven by socio-economic factors for targeted commuters.

Approximately 35% of the commuting public is currently subsidised and there are increasing pressures to expand the subsidised services to new areas. The major allocations in the transport department’s budgets are for bus and rail subsidies.

TAXI RECAPITALISATION
Two-thirds of commuters travel by mini-bus taxi, of which there are 125 000 units legally capable of carrying 16 people. The government is in the process of developing a R3 billion taxi recapitalisation programme to deal with the economic challenges facing the aged 126 000 strong taxi fleet. Most of these vehicles are more than nine years old. The aim of the programme is to replace the fleet over a period of five years with new, locally assembled 18- and 35-seater vehicles. The entire process is expected to be complete by 2006, although this depends on when the new taxis are manufactured.

The move has not been favourably received by many taxi associations and has heightened existing tensions in the taxi community. Inter-association territory disputes, often resulting in violence, have been a major source of political concern.

RAIL
A number of commuter rail tragedies in the past three years have led the government to complete draft legislation to establish a Rail Safety Regulator in South Africa and to clear the way for the SA Rail Commuter Corporation to spend more than R400 million on upgrading commuter rail safety over the next five years.

VEHICLE OVERLOADING
Overloaded vehicles have also emerged as a threat to transport safety. As part of the Road to Safety Strategy, the department has entered into public-private partnerships, and created a policy of zero tolerance on gross vehicle mass, extending the responsibility for overloading of heavy vehicles to the consignor and consignee and developing procedures to identify and deal with habitual offenders.

HIV/AIDS
A report compiled by the Cross-Border Road Transport Agency has revealed that the trucking industry is threatened by the high incidence of HIV among drivers. Migration and cross-border traffic have contributed to the spread of HIV, particularly since transport routes frequently coincide with areas of high HIV prevalence.

Source: South Africa Business Guidebook 2002-2003