THE ROLE OF BUS RAPID TRANSIT IN IMPROVING PUBLIC TRANSPORT LEVELS OF SERVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR THE URBAN POOR USERS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT: A CASE OF

The current level of service provision of public transport in Cape Town, as in other cities in South Africa, is inadequate and ineffective in meeting user needs. The ‘current (very limited, modally fragmented) commuter based service ’ is characterized by poor performance in terms of travel times, reliability, capacity, safety and security. The aim of this paper is to describe the study to assess the potential role of BRT in improving public transport levels of service, particularly for the urban poor users of public transport in Cape Town. A comparative analysis of current levels of public transport services versus predicted BRT-based IRT service levels was carried out to establish the changes that can be brought about to public transport level of service through changing to the BRT-based IRT system. The level of service measures that were examined include: walking, in-vehicle and trip distance; walking, waiting, in-vehicle and trip time; in-vehicle and trip speed; fare cost; and transfer requirement. The results indicate that the BRT-based IRT system is not clearly beneficial to the urban poor in the area of service levels improvements. While the poo