{"id":13513,"date":"2012-08-15T14:46:48","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/city-to-establish-a-dial-a-ride-forum-to-further-improve-the-system\/"},"modified":"2012-08-15T14:46:48","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:46:48","slug":"city-to-establish-a-dial-a-ride-forum-to-further-improve-the-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/city-to-establish-a-dial-a-ride-forum-to-further-improve-the-system\/","title":{"rendered":"City to establish a Dial-a-Ride Forum to further improve the system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"right\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"5\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/42c71_Dail_a_ride_1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>City of Cape Town will establish a forum to discuss and advise on the effective provision of Dial-a-Ride services in Cape Town in October 2012, as part of its Transport Month programme. Dial-a-Ride(DAR) is a door-to-door service for people with disabilities who are unable to use mainstream public transport. <\/p>\n<p>Public meetings will be held in September 2012 with people who have disabilities. It is envisaged that representatives will be nominated to serve on this forum. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best way to go about improving the system is to ask the people who use it what their suggestions are. With that in mind, we are engaging with people with disabilities with every intention of further tailoring the service to fit its customers even more, so that they can benefit as much as anyone else does from public transport,\u201d says Councillor Brett Herron, Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Roads and Stormwater. <\/p>\n<p>The City recently awarded a new contract to a service provider to operate its DAR public transport service. This was part of a process to improve this specialised service. The two year contract came into effect on 1 July 2012. <\/p>\n<p>Since 1998, DAR has provided a specialised public transport service to those people who are unable to make use of the mainstream public transport due to the nature of their disability. <\/p>\n<p>There are currently more than 6 000 registered users on the City\u2019s database, who are eligible to make use of this service. <\/p>\n<p>As part of the new contract, service hours have been extended from 06:00 till 22:00 each day. In the past the service was only offered until 18:00. <\/p>\n<p>Thirty new specially adapted vehicles now form part of the DAR fleet, and additional first-aid and sensitivity training is compulsory for all drivers. Security has also been improved through the installation of CCTV cameras on board all vehicles. <\/p>\n<p>A key discussion point during the public meetings will focus on ways to improve the service \u2013 by, for instance, cutting back on the high number of \u2018no shows\u2019 which hampers the capacity of this vital service. <\/p>\n<p>A &#8216;no show&#8217; is when a DAR vehicle is dispatched and the passenger decides not to make the trip when the vehicle arrives. This accounts for 5% of passenger trips, and an economic cost of 5 200 lost trip opportunities per year. <\/p>\n<p>The DAR service will be able to serve more registered users in Cape Town if \u2018no shows\u2019 can be eliminated. <\/p>\n<p>The DAR Forum will also pay attention to a number of challenges facing the service: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Funding &#8211; The DAR service is highly subsidised. It is co-funded 50\/50 by the Provincial Department of Transport and Public Works. With operational costs consistently rising due to a number of reasons such as fuel price hikes and inflation, the service cannot be expanded. The City has developed a Business Plan and has embarked on a process of discussions with organised business taking up their Social Responsibility Investments in the DAR system, especially those who employ a number of persons with disabilities.\n<p \/><\/li>\n<li>Growing demand &#8211; The City\u2019s Transport Department is inundated daily with requests for the expansion of the service. A database of 6 000+ potential passengers has been built up by the Department. The frustrations of potential passengers are fully understood and empathised with by the Department. This is the main motivation for the introduction of a &#8216;no show&#8217; penalty system.\n<p \/><\/li>\n<li>Integration with mainstream public transport &#8211; National legislation requires that all public transport be universally accessible. This is also the aim of the City with the introduction of the MyCiTi integrated rapid transport (IRT) network. The current IRT system is only available in certain parts of the City area, and major linkages are still outstanding. They will only be operational in a number of years&#8217; time. The City is currently investigating the integration of DAR vehicles with the current IRT system, and although it is technically possible, a number of issues must be resolved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThis process is in line with the City\u2019s continued drive to create a public transport system that is efficient and reliable for every citizen of Cape Town. Our decision to tighten down on \u2018no-shows\u2019 will go a long way towards ensuring that everyone who needs to use the Dial-a-Ride system, will be able to do so,\u201d said Cllr Herron. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>City of Cape Town will establish a forum to discuss and advise on the effective provision of Dial-a-Ride services in Cape Town in October 2012, as part of its Transport Month programme. Dial-a-Ride(DAR) is a door-to-door service for people with disabilities who are unable to use mainstream public transport. Public meetings will be held in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,1737,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-13513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-cape-town-2","8":"tag-government","9":"tag-municipality","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}