City helps commuters cushion the Rea Vaya fare increase

28 June 2016

 

Fares of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system are to go up by 6% with effect from Friday July 1, City of Johannesburg Member of the Mayoral Committee for Transport Cllr Christine Walters has announced.

 

The annual fare increase was approved by council earlier this year.

MMC Walters has appealed to commuters to take advantage of the discounts Rea Vaya has introduced to mitigate the effects of the increase. In May this year the City’s BRT system moved to a points-based system that enables commuters to load points on their Rea Vaya smartcards at R1 a point instead of paying fares in cash. As a result, frequent passengers can earn bonus points of up to 12.5% of the fares when they load between R51 and R700 on their smartcards.

“The more points you load, the more the bonus points you receive to travel for less,” Cllr Walters said.

Metrobus fares also go up by 6% from July 1.

The MMC also announced the introduction of an integrated public transport app to improve and support seamless travel on public transport in the city. Vaya Moya provides information on routes and fares of both the Rea Vaya BRT system and the Metrobus service. Initially designed for the EcoMobility World Festival in Sandton in October last year, the app is available on both Android and IOS platforms and can be downloaded for free.

It is expected that by the end of the year the app will have a “track my bus” functionality. The app is already up and running.