Johannesburg may have its bus rapid transit Rea Vaya and its Metrobus, but taxis still dominate the city’s roads as the main form of public transport, according to the city’s draft integrated development plan. In this plan, Johannesburg is aiming for 48,182 daily Rea Vaya trips. But in 2024/25, this dropped to 19,972 because the company that holds the licence to operate Rea Vaya, PioTrans, entered business rescue in December 2023 after creditors attempted to repossess its buses amid allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement. For context, in 2019/20, there were 41,645 daily passenger trips, double the number of passenger trips per day in 2024/25.

Rea Vaya feeder buses serving Soweto, introduced in November 2024, were suspended following protests from the taxi industry over registration concerns, briefly resumed, then suspended again in February 2025 after two drivers were killed.

The Rea Vaya is funded primarily by the Public Transport Network Grant, a grant funded by the national government. But in early June, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy announced her department’s plan to wind down the grant by 2028/29 after it was found that the bus rapid transit programmes were underperforming. While Cape Town’s MyCiti bus was the second bus rapid transit to come online in South Africa, it has been more successful than Johannesburg, averaging 65,000 passenger journeys every weekday. However, MyCiti also faces funding uncertainty with the winding down of the grant.