The latest audited statistics on MyCiTi ridership in and around Cape Town show that there is an increasing demand for the bus service.

“It took some time for the service to settle in again after the Covid-19 pandemic, and for operations to return to normal,” says City of Cape Town Urban Mobility MMC Rob Quintas.

“We have been carefully monitoring the uptake of the service and I am extremely proud to note that we have recorded an overall increase of more than 233 000 passenger journeys in March this year in comparison with March 2022.”

March 2022 is when all of the MyCiTi bus routes came back online, following the Covid-19 pandemic when the movement of people was curtailed, Quintas tells Engineering News Online.

“Also, the four N2 Express routes that operate along the N2 between Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha and the central business district only started operating again in February 2022 after having been suspended for over two years.”

The service was halted following a service agreement dispute.

According to the latest audited statistics for the MyCiTi bus service, 1 655 882 passenger journeys were recorded for March this year.

This is an increase of 233 163 journeys in comparison with the 1 422 719 journeys recorded for March 2022

This also means an average of 64 094 passenger journeys were recorded on every weekday in March this year.

“This confirms that commuters are taking advantage of the benefits MyCiTi offers, in particular in times of high fuel prices, and on routes where the buses have right of way along dedicated red lanes, which means MyCiTi commuters are not stuck in peak traffic,” says Quintas.

The City of Cape Town is currently expanding the MyCiTi bus service footprint to the metro-south east with new route roll-outs to connect communities from Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha with Wynberg and Claremont.

The MyCiTi bus service currently operates along 44 routes, covering destinations in the inner-city, Century City, Woodstock and Salt River, further south towards Hout Bay, Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu; to the northwest in Table View, Joe Slovo, Dunoon, Melkbosstrand, and Atlantis; inclusive of four routes in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha in the metro-south east.