The Smart Card mobile vehicles are clearly branded and cannot be missed where they park for about three hours at a time to render service to passengers who do not have close access to other top-up points. The vehicles also sell Smart Cards.
GO GEORGE has announced refinements to their current Smart Card mobile vehicle schedule to benefit passengers who are not within easy reach of fixed top-up facilities.
The Smart Card is currently the only means of payment for trips since the adoption of a no-cash policy in June last year as one of the bus service’s Covid-19 precautions. Passengers can top up their cards with trips at any of the fixed Smart Card kiosks or businesses/individuals registered as top-up vendors, or at one of the two Smart Card vehicles that travel and park around town on a fixed weekly schedule. The mobile kiosks also sell Smart Cards.
According to James Robb, GO GEORGE Manager, the addition of top-up vendors in the various areas of town has partly prompted the revision of the mobile vehicle schedule. “We are delighted with the number of businesses that have been joining the vendor network over the past few months. This enables us to remove the mobile kiosks from some of the areas where we now have sufficient vendor footprint and we really want to encourage passengers to support their local businesses by topping up in their neighbourhood,” Robb said.
“A few mobile locations where weekly sales are very low will also be moved to areas where we believe they will serve our passengers better. For instance, feedback from our teams on the ground indicated that passengers would appreciate a mobile kiosk at Shoprite in Market Street in the CBD on Friday afternoons when people do their weekly shopping. Another request came from Pacaltsdorp where there seems to be a need for a mobile kiosk at the Protea terminus during peak time on Monday mornings. We were able to reshuffle the schedule to comply with both these requests.”
The new schedule will be implemented on Sunday 19 September 2021. As new vendors continue to be added to the network, the schedule will be reviewed from time to time.
The mobile kiosk staff have been handing out flyers at the affected mobile stops since last week, notifying passengers that the service at a specific point will be terminated and indicating the location of top-up vendors in their area. The GO GEORGE communication champions will start distributing flyers with the new schedule this week. The flyers will also be available at all Smart Card kiosks and mobile kiosks, as well as the info kiosk at the Transport Hub in Cradock Street. Passengers can also visit the GO GEORGE Facebook page for the mobile schedule and the latest bus-related news, the Timetables page, write an email to info@gogeorge.org.za, or phone the Call Centre on 0800 044 044 to enquire about their closest mobile kiosk spot.
