City of Cape Town Empowers Citizens to
Streamline Commute with Mobile Access to
Transit Information
Microsoft
CityNext
The City of Cape Town is achieving its vision of becoming a “City of
Opportunity”—a united, efficient, and inclusive city in which everyone
has the opportunity to further their dreams. The city is using Microsoft
software to transform its infrastructure with a private cloud to
standardize service delivery to all constituents. Cape Town engages its
citizens through an eGovernment portal and accelerates
opportunities, for example, by working with Microsoft BizSpark to
support local startups to optimize public transport.
Summary
The City of Cape Town, with a population of 3.7 million, is the second most populous city in South
Africa. Since consolidating its operations and standardizing on Microsoft technologies in 2000, the city
has been working with Microsoft to enable a “people first” approach to service delivery that supports
its vision of providing the same opportunities for all citizens. This is a challenging goal, given the many
historically divided communities with varied socioeconomic profiles that coexist within city limits. Most
recently, the City of Cape Town is addressing the transportation issues that citizens and tourists face
when trying to navigate an informal system of minibus taxis. Poorer citizens spend a large amount of
their income on public transport, while wealthy people remain in their cars, adding to traffic
congestion. Taking advantage of the Microsoft CityNext initiative, the city of Cape Town is using a
Windows 8 app developed by a local startup called WhereIsMyTransport. The company was aided by
the Microsoft BizSpark program. To increase ridership, WhereIsMyTransport developed the app for
smartphones and also offers a text-based option for people using less-expensive “feature” phones so
that citizens from all neighborhoods, and tourists, can access transit schedule information to optimize
their movements around the city. The information gathered from the public’s use of the apps is stored
in Microsoft Azure for planners to design future transit services and infrastructure improvements. The
City of Cape Town is also partnering with Microsoft-sponsored social programs such as the 4Afrika
Initiative and YouthSpark to empower young people with opportunities for education, employment,
and entrepreneurship.
City: City of Cape Town
Website: www.capetown.gov.za
Population: 3.7 million
Country or Region: South Africa
Industry: Government—Local
City Profile: With 3.7 million inhabitants,
the City of Cape Town is the second most
populous city in South Africa and one of
the world’s largest urban areas under the
jurisdiction of a single legislative entity.
Solution: To address public transport
issues, the City of Cape town is working
with WhereIsMyTransport, a local startup
that, aided by the Microsoft BizSpark
program, developed a public transport
management system to run in Microsoft
Azure.
Software & Services:

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 8 Enterprise

Windows Phone 8

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft YouthSpark
Partner:
WhereIsMyTransport

Microsoft CityNext
www.microsoft.com/citynext
Customer Success Stories
customers.microsoft.com
“Through our participation in the
Microsoft CityNext initiative, we are
working together to improve our
government, the quality of life of our
citizens, and the future of our youth.”
Andre Stelzner, Director, Information Systems and Technology, City of Cape Town
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published: July 2014
The Full Story
Shaping History with Twenty-First Century
Technology
As a single, metropolitan municipality with jurisdiction over a
population of more than 3.7 million people, the City of Cape Town is
one of the largest, local authorities in the world. Since 1994, a large
number of municipalities that used to be divided along ethnic, social,
and economic lines now coexist in a single metropolitan area.
“Our historical context necessitated the need to restructure into a
single municipality that provides the same services to everybody,”
says Andre Stelzner, Director of Information Systems and Technology
for the City of Cape Town. “Much of that progress has been made
possible through our ICT Strategy and strategic partnership with
Microsoft.”
Bringing Government Closer to All Citizens
Using Microsoft technology, the City of Cape Town is bringing
administrative services closer to citizens everywhere. Despite the
city’s internal restructuring, people still had to travel to specific
government offices to conduct business. “We needed to bring our
systems and data closer to the people to offer consistent services to
citizens no matter where they lived,” says Stelzner.
The City of Cape Town consolidated its data stores into two main
datacenters and used Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V
virtualization technology to create a private cloud to ensure reliable,
efficient government administration and services. Also, the City of
Cape Town uses Microsoft SharePoint Server technology to serve
eGovernment solutions. Today, more than 150,000 citizens access the
city’s eServices website, www.capetown.gov.za to connect with the
city when and where it is convenient.
Addressing Congestion
Titled the “Most Congested City in South Africa” by TomTom* in its
fourth annual global traffic index for 2013, it’s easy to see the roots of
the city’s traffic issues. “Our transport challenges are born out of the
city’s historical design,” says Stelzner. “Poorer citizens face long
commutes at a disproportionally high cost to get to work on public
transport from outlying neighborhoods. Meanwhile, affluent citizens
remain in their cars.”
Navigating the city is based on local knowledge of informal transport
systems, such as minibus taxis that don’t adhere to any schedule or
fixed routes. These issues also make it difficult for tourists to find
their way around the city, impacting the businesses that depend on
tourism. WhereIsMyTransport, a local startup, is tackling these issues
under the auspices of the CityNext initiative.
The origins of WhereIsMyTransport and its Advanced Public
Transport Management System (APTMS) go back to 2007 when five
students at the University of Cape Town began work on their Honors
Software Design project. In 2008, the team competed in Paris, France,
at the world finals of Imagine Cup, a student technology competition
run by Microsoft. Back in Cape Town, the startup joined the Microsoft
BizSpark program, which provides access to software, developer
tools, services, and support. “The BizSpark program was invaluable in
helping us to rearchitect our WhereIsMyTransport APTMS platform in
the Microsoft Azure environment,” says Devin de Vries, Cofounder of
WhereIsMyTransport. “Running everything in Azure means that we
can boost the reliability of our operations and scale globally.”
“WhereIsMyTransport illustrates why we participated in Microsoft
CityNext,” adds Stelzner. “We like the partnership approach, where
through programs like BizSpark, Microsoft helps us drive innovation
by our citizens to help shape the future of our city.”
Driving Transportation Improvements
The City of Cape Town will be one of the first to benefit from the
WhereIsMyTransport APTMS platform that aggregates schedule data
from six transport operators and makes it available for an estimated
audience of 300,000 to 500,000 people via a Windows 8 app called
FindMyWay that they can use to optimize their travel around the city.
WhereIsMyTransport also created an option for people who cannot
afford smartphones so they can access the service through a textbased model using simple “feature” phones. By using technology to
increase people’s access to information, the City of Cape Town hopes
to increase public transport ridership, reduce congestion, and
improve the environment by reducing vehicular traffic on its roads.
“Now we can make all transit information easily accessible for all
commuters, where it was virtually unattainable in a single location
before,” says Stelzner. “Helping poorer people find more affordable
opportunities to get to work is good for the economy. Making it
easier for tourists to enjoy our beautiful city will boost tourism. And
as we learn about people’s movement patterns from the app, we gain
valuable information to ensure our future investments in public
transportation match how people prefer to move around the city.”
The City of Cape Town is looking forward to realizing these benefits
and more from participating in different Microsoft programs that
support its efforts to encourage and enable young people and
entrepreneurs through access to technology. These programs include
the 4Afrika Initiative, which Microsoft uses to actively engage in
Africa’s economic development and improve its global
competitiveness, and YouthSpark, a Microsoft program committed to
empowering young people with opportunities for education,
employment, and entrepreneurship.
“We have some exciting plans for engaging our youth, and we will
work with Microsoft to tackle these,” concludes Councilor Xanthea
Limberg, the Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services for
the City of Cape Town. “Our experience working with Microsoft is
helping us overcome both historical and modern-day challenges.
Partnerships, such as the one we have through CityNext, is moving us
forward.”
*TomTom News, June 03, 2014
www.tomtom.com/news/category.php?ID=4&NID=1539&Lid=28
Microsoft CityNext