Mobility is freedom

During one of his original comedy specials Trevor Noah, South Africa's export comedian, reflected on his excitement after passing his driving test and finally getting his driver licence. For him, it meant freedom, especially in a country where public transport has struggled with numerous complex historical city and town planning challenges.?

Along with private car ownership affording this freedom to all South Africans has been a daunting task for our national government.?

Globally, and in South Africa, ever-expanding cities have forced national and local authorities to implement solutions ensuring citizens' mobility while balancing their livability.

The UN predicts 68% of the global population will reside in urban areas by 2050. Urbanisation has caused yet another noun to be added to the buzz phrase "as a service." Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Originally Software as a Service (SaaS) was coined in the early 2000s. Today we have XaaS, Anything as a Service. The original as a service is synonymous with "on-demand," meaning the service is available whenever the user requests without any long-term contracts.

As venture capital firms and governments deploy funds to address mobility issues, the Netflix model is one of the various service business models used as an example of the flexibility required in innovative problem-solving. However, the transport economics of data delivery via fibre optic underwater cables to a digital screen offers significant operational leverage. In contrast, MaaS businesses face low operating leverage in mobility. Data delivery is highly scalable because the delivery unit is minute compared to the demands of human mobility. Variables in mobility include extreme fluctuations in traffic due to events, frequency of travel, time of travel, and population growth.

Apart from the growth problem South Africa shares with the rest of the world and mobility start-ups probing various shared economy solutions for the first and last mile, the backbone of the county's public transport system requires more than venture capital.?

Road networks are struggling to deal with growth as building more roads has diminishing returns in that more roads would bring more drivers. Population growth, urban crawl, and urbanisation are the size variables all modes of transport need to address, not just in mobility but logistics as well, as they share public resources. Initially, road networks dealt with population growth well while addressing the last- and first-mile issues with taxis and today with bicycle or scooter-sharing platforms and e-hail providers, including Uber and Lyft. The areas in which the private sector can make a difference, with mainlines in rail and bus rapid transport being capital-intensive public resources.?

Regarding mainlines, Prasa and the Metrorail have historical city and town planning to overcome to improve rail operations with incompatibility of existing city infrastructure developed for private and semi-public transport use. The national and local governments must work together effectively to overcome the historic, energy, labour, fiscal, and corruption challenges that pose continuous threats to the mobility of South Africans.?

When Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis launched his feasibility study of Cape Town's railway system, he called for "functional federalism." Where local government and municipalities have the capacity, they should be involved in the national government's functions. Even though load-shedding brought the rail operations to a standstill, the national government met the mayor's request with resistance. However, Prasa, under new leadership, recently shared their excitement about new collaborations with the City of Cape Town. National resistance can hinder local digitisation projects and hiring skilled labour to implement digital ticketing, scheduling, and live alerts.?

Fiscally, the combination of a trade deficit of over R23 billion and the greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in February will affect the availability and cost of capital. Putting the national treasury under pressure to allocate funds to the public enterprises that need it most. Transaction fees on foreign direct investment will increase, with other countries having additional due diligence measures to trade and invest in South Africa. More red tape linked to our complex foreign exchange regulations will further stress the private sector capital availability.?

High inflation and a high-interest cycle after the C19 pandemic have affected maintenance efforts across all shared services infrastructure and will continue to do so with another rate increase in the first quester of 2023. Making working capital finance expensive for new transport infrastructure development.?

Unfortunately, in South Africa, no list of challenges related to public transport is complete without including violence.?

If not managed carefully, the trade deficit can result in job losses, leading to destructive and violent protests. Taxi unions continuously put pressure on fees due to fuel price increases, and protests have often been the careless means to an end. And with organised crime units linked to the extortion of construction sites, law enforcement faces another challenge to ensure our cities keep up with new departure points to get to commercial hubs.?

To give Mzansi's citizens the freedom of mobility, our national- and local governments must ensure the backbone of our public transport network is safe, reliable, and digital for the private sector to bring first and last-mile solutions.?