Rea Vaya, Johannesburg‘s Rapid Bus Transit system, was initiated in 2006 and three years later — in August 2009 — the first dedicated trunk route was operationalised from Soweto in the south-west to the inner city of Johannesburg. In 2013, at the time of the project, this Phase 1A service carried 43,000 passengers per day and traveled 6.5 million kms per annum on the trunk, as well as linking to feeder and complementary buses that travel in mixed traffic. The decision on the selection of the route was influenced by the facts that it is a high-demand corridor which links Soweto to Sandton and thus the poor south with the rich north. Moreover, it linked the Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadiums to the ‘accommodation hub’ in Sandton during the FIFA World Cup in 2010. In 2013, the BRT covered 25 kms of a dedicated trunk route for 18-metre articulated buses. The project involved a Peer Review assessment of the Rea Vaya system to provide guidance on future developments. For a downloadable report please click here (3.5 MB).
Project Team
- Michael Abraham (Convenor)
Guillermo Calderón Aguilera, General Director, Metrobús, Mexico City, Mexico
Desmond Edenojie, Deputy Director of Bus Services, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, Nigeria
Paul James, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Abhijit Lokre, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
Hanns-Uve Schwedler, European Academy of the Urban Environment, Berlin, Germany