Service Delivery Is the Real Test of This Election – CESA 
By CESA CEO Chris Campbell

What enables a safe, sustainable, reliable and affordable transport system? A road designed for the traffic it carries, or a bridge maintained before it fails? Perhaps it is the public transport system, which relies on the condition of this infrastructure.

Maybe we need to stop planning and implement the long-spoken vision of integrated public transport systems that connect people seamlessly to opportunity; as well as design our infrastructure planned not only for today, but for the demands of tomorrow. We have various modes of transport available for public transport purposes, in the form of trains, taxis and buses, but our ability to integrate and coordinate these systems to ensure that we can optimise the usage of our transport systems eludes us.

We need to rethink the notion that adding more lanes to roads will solve our traffic and transport challenges, as these eventually become saturated. Should we not consider how we might reduce urban motor vehicle traffic through coordinated, reliable, affordable, safe and integrated mass passenger transport? We likely have some of these plans, but for years implementation has been the hurdle.

We know these systems can work and rightly so, as is the case in many developed countries. But it will take strong political will to make this work, and at the same time, we know that sustainable service delivery does not happen by itself. It is the result of political and policy certainty, which encourages the investment decisions to be made and acted on, so that the remaining processes related to planning, design, construction, maintenance and operations materialise in good time and at a reasonable cost.

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