Civil Engineering September 2022 | Vol 30 No 8

30 September 2022 Civil Engineering me by the door. Ultimately, the vehicle was overloaded by three people. We encountered road traffic officers again and Thabo decided to drive very close to the car ahead in order to obscure of- ficers’ view. He also told the overloaded passengers to hide, myself included. After evading the police officers Thabo told me that the passengers sometimes argue viscously with the officers if the taxi is stopped, indicating that they don’t want to arrive late at work. In such cases the driver just lets passengers do the defence work. En route the driver encountered a congested road section and drove down a gravel section next to the road. He passed all the cars and gained access to the front of the queue. When we returned to the Nellmapius Taxi Rank at around 08:30 the rank was virtually empty, so Thabo drove around the neighbourhood collecting people to bring to the taxi rank. Every other taxi was doing the same. After five minutes there were enough people at the taxi rank for seven to ten full loads. As the taxis were being loaded, the drivers were fighting about which taxi should be loaded first because some didn’t want to “float” in the neighbourhood and bring passengers to the rank. A heated argu- ment ensued and ended when passengers were taken out of one taxi which was not floating to one which was floating. Thabo soon got a full load. On the way, he realised that one of his tyres was becoming flat. He stopped at a filling station and inflated the tyre, which continued to deflate during the journey. After delivering all passengers he headed to the nearest filling station and I helped him replaced the tyre with a spare. From the filling station he drove to Menlyn Mall, but found that the parking area for taxis was full. He parked on the sidewalk and went to buy food at a nearby stall. It was 10:30 and he was having his first full meal of the day – pap and beef stew with a can of Coca-Cola. He was not the only driver there and I realised that almost all the drivers come here to buy food. Their food varied from beef stew to T-bones and chicken, served with pap or rice. The sides included a homemade chakalaka, pumpkin, spinach and beet- root. The cost of a plate that had any type of beef together with the sides and pap or rice was R45, while the chicken option was R35. After eating Thabo went to park five minutes away at Water Glen Mall. All the taxis that don’t have space to park at Menlyn Mall and are not floating park at Water Glen Mall, which is used as a resting place for drivers while they wait for their registered afternoon spots. Thabo slept in the car from around 11:30 to 14:00. Other drivers played card games while some went to a nearby casino to gamble. This is a daily routine for the drivers. At 14:30 Thabo got a load at the Menlyn Taxi Rank and headed to Mamelodi. On the way, he drove along the median island to avoid being stuck in traffic. By 14:40 the last passenger got off and he decided to go and repair the punc- tured tyre at an informal vendor under a tree in Mamelodi East, where he says it is cheaper, costing only R30 compared to a tyre shop where he could pay up to R150. He added that the person who patches wheels is much more experienced and reliable because he has been doing it for a long time. Unfortunately, the tyre was too damaged to be fixed and had to be replaced with a new one. He drove back to Water Glen Mall and registered at 15:52. By 16:20 the new tyre was bought and fitted. Thabo then went straight to Menlyn Taxi Rank because his position on the register was imminent, as confirmed by a queue marshal. At 16:56 his taxi was full. This time around he decided to use the N1 freeway to Mamelodi because all the other routes were congested. Using the freeway meant he was going to pay a toll fee, but he didn’t mind. All he wanted was to get to the destination as soon as possible so that, if time allowed, he could go back to Menlyn for another load. We only arrived in Mamelodi at 18:25, after spending 1 hour and 29 minutes on the road, and Thabo dropped off his last passenger at 19:07. After that, he looked at the traffic and realised it was going to take him another 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to Menlyn. He decided to knock off and arrived home at 19:30, after starting his workday at 03:00. THE KEY TAKEAWAYS I have the following takeaways from this investigation: Q Q Road traffic congestion: Road traffic congestion is costly to minibus taxi drivers, and their illegal manoeuvres seek to offset this problem. Addressing this would probably require all the drivers to obey the rules of the road as any driver not obeying the rules, and benefitting, appears to trigger the rest to break the rules – a vicious cycle. Q Q Cash: Cash is a basic necessity for drivers to transact within the broader value chain, including buying of meals, newspapers, ad hoc vehicle repairs, and even gambling. Eliminating cash in the industry will likely have an impact beyond the transport system. Flexibility in this regard may be more pragmatic. Q Q Survival mode: Minibus taxi drivers operate in a survival mode. This ren- ders the industry vulnerable to violent outbursts with every systemic shock, for example fuel price and other socio- economic shocks. Therefore, violence in the minibus taxi industry remains an ever-present structural risk. Q Q Driver health: Drivers tend to work very long hours under stressful condi- tions, including the feeling of being unwanted through the lack of provi- sion of proper ranking facilities in the midst of opulence. The drivers seem to be sacrificing their welfare to provide a basic public service and are underap- preciated when doing so. This in turn may be responsible for resentful driver attitudes and feelings of injustice. Q Q Cooperation: Drivers often cooperate with each other to maximise passenger loads. This behaviour results in shared operational costs and maximisation of passengers per trip. Therefore, the business of each driver should not be analysed in isolation. Q Q Transport planners: Transport plan- ners need to empirically understand the operations of the minibus taxi industry in order to formulate respon- sive solutions. In this regard, planners have to work very closely with the drivers and other critical role players for more context appropriate solutions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the CSIR for this fantastic opportunity, especially Dr Mathetha Mokonyama for the eye-opening experience. I would also like to thank Rika Botha for assisting me with the necessary paperwork and administration needed to successfully conduct the research.  * Name changed to protect the driver’s identity