When the Confederations Cup kicks off in June 2009, there would be 143 new buses moving along the Rea Vaya bus-rapid transit system (BRT) on the newly widened streets of Johannesburg.

The BRT project recently put out a request for information from potential bus suppliers, and a non compulsory meeting would be held at the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) head office on August 25.

“We will evaluate those documents and probably issue a proper tender for the supply of the buses for phase 1A of the Rea Vaya project,” explained City of Johannesburg transportation executive director Bob Stanway.

He indicated that the project placed a strong emphasis, and high scores on local manufacture, both in South Africa, and additional points for manufacture in Gauteng province.

“The tender for the buses was only advertised on Friday, 15 August 2008 but we have had a lot of interest, a lot of documents have been picked up already,” said Stanway.

“There is a very strong bus-body building industry in South Africa, but in most instances, the chassis and the engines are imported from other countries, so it just depends on which way the procurement process goes, but certainly we are going to try and force local body manufacturing for the BRT buses,” Stanway added.

The phase 1A of the project, which was on target to be operational by mid-May 2009, would use 143 buses, including spares. Some 41 of those would be articulated buses, and the other 102 complementary buses. The entire first phase of the project would make use some 1 200 buses.

By the time phase 1A was completed, the Rea Vaya system would comprise about 25 km of trunk infrastructure (road upgrades), ten routes, 20 BRT stations, 143 new buses, one new BRT bus operating company, a control centre based at the JRA, and a fare system making use of smart cards.

The BRT Rea Vaya bus routes for phase 1A would run from Regina Mundi to Orlando, where it would link the stadium in Orlando to Soweto. The routes would also run from Soweto along the Pat Mbatha Highway, to the inner city along Market and Commissioner streets. The two loops in the inner city would link the stadium in Orlando to the stadium in Ellis Park, by passing through the Joubert Park area.

This was where most activity was currently taking place and streets in the inner city were being widened and strengthened.

EXISTING SERVICES REPLACED OR UPGRADED

On most of the roads, contractors would remove between 400 mm and 500 mm of surface material, and replace it with stronger material, which would improve some very poor road construction in areas and allow the roads to accommodate the heavier buses. It was not feasible to simply tar over existing roads with stronger material, existing unsuitable material had to be removed.

As the surface replacement takes place “what we have found in the inner city, is a whole range of very old services that crisscross under the road. Edith Cavell road in particular had a lot of very old water and gas pipes, and some of that we have had to replace, so it has been more expensive than we had anticipated. The funding on that is already covered in the infrastructure contracts,” said Stanway.

The design life of the newly laid BRT surfaces was 20 years, and a thicker and stronger cement-impregnated product was used to handle the higher axle load of the buses, explained Johannesburg Development Agency BRT senior development manager Nkosincthi Mazana.

“The BRT articulated buses have three axles, each of which puts some 12,5 t of weight onto the road,” Mazana added