{"id":8149,"date":"2015-09-25T16:22:38","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T23:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=8149"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:51:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:51:06","slug":"nelson-mandela-bay-metropolitan-municipality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=8149","title":{"rendered":"Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe<\/a>\u201d \u2013\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.<\/p>\n

\n

Organization: <\/strong>Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong>(NMBMM) \u2013<\/strong> South Africa
\nProject type :\u00a0<\/strong>Metro bus purchase
\nProject name :<\/strong> Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS)
\nDate : <\/strong>February\u00a02015
\nCost : <\/strong>R2 billion ZAR (approximately $130M USD)<\/p>\n

Synopsis :
\n<\/strong>The purchase of 60 buses at a cost of R100 million (ZAR) has left the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality publicly\u00a0embarrassed. The buses were purchased in 2009 as part of a program to refresh municipal bus service in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. \u00a0Although the fleet was used during the\u00a02010 Soccer World Cup, they were parked\u00a0as soon as the tournament was over. Six years down the line, they remain idle and gathering dust.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Transit options – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic – Source: B. Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bus purchase was part of a larger R2 billion ($130M USD) push to implement a Bus Rapid Transit system in Port Elizabeth. The project started in 2008 but unfortunately, 8 years later, there is still no operational system in place.\u00a0Reports from Port Elizabeth indicate that flaws in the design process have resulted in bus lanes that are impractical, zebra crossings that obstruct traffic flow and design flaws that represent a danger to users of the system.<\/p>\n

The busses themselves typify the types of mistakes made.\u00a0A faulty specification process resulted in the purchase of buses that were too big for the driving lanes. In addition, the failure to identify the need to drop passengers off on \u201ccentral islands\u201d resulted\u00a0in the doors ending up on the wrong side of the bus.\u00a0With funds appropriated by the South African government for the purchase of the buses, the NMBMM failed to ensure that the investment satisfied its intended long-term purpose of\u00a0provide a more efficient public transport system to Port Elizabethans.<\/p>\n

Challenges in the project have also resulted in significant turnover in key resources working on the project. Local news reporters note that\u00a0from 2008 to 2013 the\u00a0project has been through five different Engineering companies and\u00a0four Project Managers. Such turnover compounds the problems in a project as decision-making gets reset each time a new person or organization joins the team.<\/p>\n

The challenges the project has encountered also raises serious concerns over the governance process in use. \u00a0How could a project go for so long\u00a0with so much dysfunction?<\/p>\n

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
\n<\/strong>Lack of oversight (six years after fact the matter is being pursued); Poor requirements management and a lack of attention to detail (resulting in faulty requirements); and dysfunctional\u00a0decision-making; Failure to engage stakeholders; High staff turnover levels.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Nelson Mandela Bay buses worth R100m gather dust in \u2018failed project\u2019<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Bus Crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Contributing editor – Hylton Ferreira<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe\u201d \u2013\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world. Organization: Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality\u00a0(NMBMM) \u2013 South Africa Project type :\u00a0Metro bus purchase Project name : Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) Date : February\u00a02015 Cost : R2 billion ZAR (approximately $130M USD) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,77],"tags":[138,100,130,17,141,93,147],"class_list":["post-8149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-failed-project","category-why-projects-fail","tag-causes-of-failure","tag-examples-of-failed-projects","tag-government","tag-leadership","tag-management","tag-why-do-projects-fail","tag-why-projects-fail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8149"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10064,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions\/10064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}