The first phase of the City of Ekurhuleni’s Harambee bus service is up and running following the starter service launch held in Kempton Park recently.

The service will feature eight buses operating between Tembisa and Isando in Kempton Park. The route will run along a portion of the Phase 1A operations and includes 30 designated kerbside stops.

According to the municipality operations will take a few weeks to ramp up with a few issues to be expected in the first week however, with ongoing monitoring and operational meetings with the taxi industry it expects to increase ridership.

Eliminating teething problems

The Harambee bus service forms part of a larger integrated rapid public transport network project which consists of five phases to be rolled out by the municipality in the long term. The first phase of the project includes three sub-phases.

The city said that it opted to launch operations with a starter service to not only fulfill the National Department of Transport’s (NDoT) mandate but to eliminate any teething problems once the full service commences.

The buses will run every 20 minutes during peak times, which fall between 05:00am to 09:00am and 15:00pm to 19:00pm, and every 60 minutes during off-peak times. Commuters can expect to pay R13 for a single trip ticket which they can purchase from mobile kiosks located in Tembisa and Isando.

The service will not run on Sundays or public holidays and commuters can only expect to use smart cards for the service from February 2018.