The roll-out of bus-rapid transit (BRT) systems in some of South Africa's largest cities will benefit future phases of existing BRT systems or new BRT systems, as lessons have been learnt about the challenges experienced in rolling out and operating such systems.

At a Transport Forum event, held in Johannesburg, on Thursday, City of Cape Town Public Transport Operations acting director Gershwin Fortune said the MyCiTi BRT system had been faced with financial challenges, as well as service delivery protests.

He indicated that the BRT system was doing well in terms of revenue generated from passengers compared with the total cost of operating the system, but said that achieving financial and fiscal sustainability of the system remained a challenge.

He pointed to six "critical" lessons that have been learned in implementing the MyCiTi system, which are being used to improve the system as it is rolled out to new areas.

Firstly, he emphasised the importance of having a multiyear financial plan, with BRTs being long-term projects that required financial and fiscal sustainability over a 12-year period or longer.

Secondly, he noted that, when selecting a mode of transport for a public transport system, that mode had to have a speed advantage over other modes. In the case of BRT, this meant that there must be a dedicated lane that was physically separated to ensure faster transit times.

Thirdly, there was the issue of paratransit systems, with these needing to be integrated into the BRT system. Fortune indicated that this was a challenge that had yet to be solved, but it was imperative, as cities cannot run without complementary transport services like taxis.

Fourthly, he noted the importance of getting the land mix correct, not just in terms of density, but in having the correct density in the correct places.

Fifthly, he noted that cities often lacked the necessary skills to operate, manage and maintain BRT systems once they had been planned and implemented. He emphasised that these critical skills had to be secured and maintained in-house.

Lastly, he noted that there were issues around service delivery protests that needed to be taken into account.

Moving forward, he emphasised that it was imperative that cities continued with multilayered plans that responded to social development needs, while also pursuing a network that was integrated and multimodel and did not ostracise or pit different modes of transport against each other.

He also called for cities to collaborate with each other around public transport systems and on finding solutions to challenges.

City of Tshwane Customer Information Services Systems deputy director Ruth Mutasa, meanwhile, said the selection of a BRT system in any city must be suitable for the local environment and that it was important to find ways to increase ridership numbers while the roll-out of a system was still under way.

She also emphasised that BRT systems had to expand to previously marginalised areas and that there was a need to integrate existing public transport systems, including taxis, into the transport network.

Tshwane operates the A Re Yeng BRT system.