Commuting via Johannesburg’s Rea Vaya bus rapid transit (BRT) system is set to become an even simpler, more pleasant experience when a series of improved features are retrofitted across the city’s BRT network.
Inspecting new features provisionally installed at Westgate stationRea Vaya infrastructure director Charles Blok, along with JDA and Rea Vaya officials and independent engineers, inspects new features provisionally installed at Westgate station.The City of Joburg, with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) as the lead implementing agency, is investing massively in establishing and expanding the Rea Vaya network, as the key component of a Corridors of Freedom strategy aimed at undoing the legacy of apartheid town planning.
With the south-western parts of the city connected to the CBD by the completed Rea Vaya phase 1A and 1B developments, work is well under way on the phase 1C expansion into the city’s north-eastern quadrant – and various refinements of the five-year-old system are in the pipeline.
Among these are the planned station retrofits, which are based on staff and user feedback and address issues of passenger safety and comfort, flow of movement through stations, and availability and visibility of information.
On Tuesday 24 March, JDA and Rea Vaya representatives joined independent engineers at an internal briefing session at the Westgate station, which was partially retrofitted to allow an evaluation of the new design features.
These include tactile paving to assist visually impaired passengers; redesigned ticket booths for easier customer interaction; more robust toilets to be repositioned within the paid area of the station; and louvre panels to prevent rain water spray from entering between the station roof and glass façade.
To improve visibility and communication, each station will be marked near the entrance by its own “totem pole”, fitted with a touch screen displaying bus times, routes and destinations. Inside the station, larger, double-sided information display screens will keep passengers notified of bus movements, while upgraded station doors will open automatically when buses arrive, accompanied by voice notification.
The new features, once finalised and approved, will be incorporated into all existing stations, and become part of the design and construction of new stations going forward.
Rea Vaya infrastructure director Charles Blok, who led the evaluation session, said the aim was not to change the original overall design concept, but to find ways of working within this to make improvements, given that the phase 1A stations had been designed and built to meet tight deadlines ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
“We are relooking at what we have done on the older stations and solutions that could improve efficiency,” Blok said, adding that the retrofits would “significantly improve the facilities available for bus passengers and staff members.
“We aim to breathe new life into the old stations and the space outside, making it a far more welcoming gateway.”