Study: Cape Town public transport info gaps limit users’ ability to plan, arrive on time

Thami Nkwanyane

While it’s fairly easy for a car owner to hop into their vehicle, turn on their navigation system and head off to a new place, it’s a lot more difficult to do that as a public transport user in Cape Town. Information gaps of public transport can severely constrain a person’s ability to reach various opportunities in the city, whether that be getting to a job interview in time, meeting with friends on the weekend, or exploring new places.

In trying to come to a better understanding of how information and communications technology like mobile phones could be used to help captive public transport users to plan non-routine journeys using both scheduled and unscheduled public transport in Cape Town, University of Cape Town (UCT) PhD graduate Bianca Ryseck embarked on a study for her doctoral thesis to unravel this problem. Ryseck is a consultant at Arup.

The study,