The City of Cape Town will soon boost its fleet of MyCiTi vehicles with the addition of 190 brand new feeder buses.
The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Roads and Stormwater, Councillor Brett Herron, today announced the winning tender for the manufacturing of these new vehicles.
“Busmark 2000 has won the tender to supply us with 190 Optare Solos – a low-floor, low entry midibus which is 9m in length and 2.5m wide The vehicles have 25 seats, with four flip-down seats plus one wheelchair bay, with a total capacity of 50 passengers, including standing passengers,” said Councillor Herron.
The buses will be supplied in kit form and assembled locally, using local labour, parts and materials where possible – which translates into very valuable job opportunities for local workers and much-needed investment in the Cape economy.
More than 285 000 hours of work will be created in the city in the assembly of these buses and more than 110 staff will be employed in the Busmark facility in Elsies River. The local plant will also manufacture parts due for export to Europe.
The vehicle’s name ‘Solo’ is a play on the low-floor status of the bus. The manufacturer believes that its vehicle has an entrance that is ‘so low’ from the floor, namely 200mm. The buses also boast kneeling suspension, meaning they are able to lower themselves even further to allow the bottom of the doors to be in line with the height of the pavement. In keeping with MyCiTi’s mandate to make the buses as universally accessible as possible, boarding bridges that extend from beneath the bus doors will provide level boarding, not just at stations, but also at kerbside feeder bus stops.
“We will use the buses to alleviate congestion on existing feeder routes, and for service on new feeder routes, as our system expands across the Peninsula,” said Councillor Herron.
The engine emission of the new buses is rated EURO5, which is a step up from the current MyCiTi buses and their EURO4 rating.
The contract awarded to Busmark, valued at a total of R660 million, includes a maintenance program, the training of maintenance staff and the equipping of a new MyCiTi depot and workshops.
Delivery of the vehicles will start seven months from the final awarding of the contract, initially with 30 vehicles a month and later 20 vehicles a month being delivered.
