Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport, Mr Bheki Nkosi will visit the Rosslyn taxi scrapping centre in Pretoria on Monday, 5 October 2009. The visit is part of the public transport month campaign which is celebrated during the month of October every year.
The aim of the campaign is to maximise awareness about the use of public transport. Motorists are encouraged to use buses, trains and buses or lift clubs to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.
The Germiston taxi scrapping centre is one of the country wide sites created to serve the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme (TRP) objectives. The TRP is an intervention by government to bring about safe, effective, reliable, affordable and accessible taxi operations by introducing New Taxi Vehicles (NTV) designed to undertake public transport functions in the taxi industry.
Through the TRP, government has ensured the introduction of safety requirements for passengers in the NTV, comfort for commuters by insisting on the size and number of seats in the NTV and branding and colour coding of taxi vehicles so that legal taxis could be identified and differentiated from illegal ones, and also that commuters can easily identify a taxi vehicle.
The TRP is not only benefiting commuters but taxi operators are benefiting too. It looks at how best operators can be assisted to benefit constructively in the industry through empowerment. All legal taxi operators in possession of a valid operating license linked to a legally registered taxi issued by an authorised operating licensing board qualify to take part in the TRP.
Issued by: Department of Transport, Gauteng Provincial Government
30 September 2009
Source: Department of Transport, Gauteng Provincial Government (http://www.roadsandtransport.gpg.gov.za/)
