The City of Cape Town has launched the pilot phase of WiFi provision on the MyCiTi buses this week.
According to a statement, this is part of a pilot phase and WiFi has been installed on 10 MyCiTi buses, which will first be tested on the various feeder routes across the city.
Once the service has been tested on the feeder routes, the full roll-out will be expanded to all 380 buses such as the trunk routes in Atlantis, Table View, Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha.
Passengers on these buses will be able to connect their WiFi enabled devices including cellphones, laptops and tablets.
Late last year the City awarded a tender to VAST Networks to provide and manage the provision of WiFi on MyCiTi buses.
Basic use of the service will be free. Each passenger will have use of a limited amount of data for a limited amount of time each day at no charge.
Free 50MB per dayEach passenger will receive 50MB per day to get connected and start working or do research while travelling to and from work or school.
Passengers will be able to register to the “VAST” WiFi in a few easy steps, click on “complimentary access” and start browsing using the free 50MB.
Once this allocation expires, users will be redirected to the homepage where they can either buy WiFi vouchers or proceed to using their own data.
An exciting part of this service is a free VAST portal where commuters can browse a range of content such as news, sport, lifestyle and educational sites free of any data charges.
As part of the pilot phase, commuters will also be able to log into the WiFi at the Cape Town Metrorail station.
“It was indeed an exciting day for me as I was finally able to join passengers on board a MyCiTi bus and connect to the internet,” says mayor Patricia de Lille.
Soon on 380 busesThe provision of WiFi on the MyCiTi buses is an integral part of the City’s Congestion Relief Programme as this provides an incentive to use public transport instead of private vehicles so that the number of cars on the roads can be reduced.
During the proof of concept phase, the service will be tested on 10 buses on various routes and feedback from commuters will be used to improve the service where necessary.
“Once we are satisfied with the performance and the pilot phase of six months is completed, WiFi will progressively become available on all MyCiTi bus routes. We firmly believe that there is a positive correlation between the availability of internet access and the social and economic upliftment of communities,” says De Lille.
