Pretoria- Travelling with Johannesburg's Rea Vaya bus service is going to be a whole lot cheaper and more convenient with a new points system and vending machines having been announced.
The new system starts today and will offer passengers the opportunity to buy points to travel and no longer pay loading fees.
Passengers can earn points for every rand they spend - for every R1 spent, commuters will get one point.
It also introduces bonus points - extra points that commuters earn when loading points on to their smart cards.
The more points loaded in a single transaction, the greater number of bonus points earned. These bonus points can then be used towards purchasing additional trips on Rea Vaya.
This means passenger will get up to 25% off from 1 May to 30 June, and up to 12.5% from 1 July when the new fares are introduced.
This comes after two years of consultations with Rea Vaya commuters who suggested that the cash system should be replaced with the point system and vending machines in every station to cut long queues.
City of Joburg Member of Mayoral Committee for Transport, Christine Walters explained that “On this new system what the passenger will be loading each time will be Rea Vaya points, 1 point for every R1 loaded on their card. The new points-based system will see commuters loading points instead of cash on to their Rea Vaya smart cards. Loading fee is gone, no more loading fee.”
Passengers will still be loading and swiping their smartcards, and the amount deducted from the card will still be based on the distance of the trip travelled.
All cash already loaded onto passenger’s smartcards will be converted to Rea Vaya points from 1 May 2016.
Fifty-six year old Thembelihle Shabangu from Soweto travels every day from Thokoza Park to Auckland Park where she is working; she said the new system would help a lot.
“This system will be an answer to our problems. We used to stand on long queues waiting to load cash, now the vending machines will be the solution,” said Shabangu.- SAnews.gov.za
