How to Implement Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Options

This guide provides an overview of the necessity and implementation of a transport modal shift in South African cities, moving commuters from private vehicles to public or non-motorized transport to reduce carbon emissions and congestion.

• The transport sector is a major contributor to environmental degradation in South African cities, accounting for 25% of carbon emissions and 50% of energy consumption.
• Public transport in South African cities is underutilized due to safety concerns, an unreliable reputation, perceived slowness compared to taxis, and inconvenience caused by poor links to informal settlements.
• South Africa's heavy reliance on oil imports, which constitute approximately 70% of all liquid fuels, makes the economy vulnerable to international price fluctuations and supply disruptions.
• In Cape Town, a target of a 10% shift in commuters from private to public transport by 2020 is projected to save 148 million gigajoules of energy (equivalent to 4.7 billion litres of petrol), 9 billion tonnes of CO2, and nearly R25 billion in fuel costs by 2024.
• Barriers to implementing a modal shift include high costs for infrastructure upgrades, fragmented management of services, a lack of network integration, and historical apartheid planning that placed disadvantaged communities far from transport nodes.
• To address institutional fragmentation, South African cities are developing Transport Authorities; Ethekwini was the first to do so, followed by explorations in Tshwane and Cape Town.
• The City of Johannesburg is implementing the 'Rea Vaya Joburg' Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, costing approximately R2 billion, which aims to eventually make bus routes accessible to 85% of the city's population via 325km of special lanes and 40 interchange nodes.
• Bogotá, Colombia, implemented the TransMilenio mass transit system to address extreme congestion where private cars used 95% of road space despite transporting only 19% of the population.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). How to Implement Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Options. https://leap.sei.org/documents/SEA7.Public%20transport.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. How to Implement Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Options. n.d. https://leap.sei.org/documents/SEA7.Public%20transport.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=How to Implement Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Options |url=https://leap.sei.org/documents/SEA7.Public%20transport.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendhow, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{How to Implement Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Options}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://leap.sei.org/documents/SEA7.Public%20transport.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }