OPINION: Municipal transport failing “transit citizen” students who need decent, reliable public transport

 By Mfanafuthi Sithebe

Our public transport system is highly regulated, and the State is one of the custodians of the providers of public transport services.

South Africa has a road network of 750 000 km, the tenth longest network in the world.

The South African National Roads Agency is currently managing about 21,403 km, of which 84 per cent are non-tolled and only 16 per cent are tolled. Provinces manage about 47,348 km whereas 51,682 km is managed by municipalities.

 Prasa, the managing agency for community rail owns 2 280 Kilometers of South Africa’s rail network and uses some of the 22 000 Kilometers of rail track under the control of Transnet.

For now, the provision of this service solely vests with the railway agency, PRASA – although there is a call by certain municipalities to liberalize/devolve the rail network.

Currently, the road is unavoidably the default freight transport mode,