Transportation
Mapping Cape Town's Informal Minibus Taxi Network
How a startup mapped 657 routes, nearly 1,500m and 5,500 miles in three weeks.
It’s easy to miss Nyanga, one of Cape Town’s oldest black neighborhoods, on a map of the South African city. Nyanga doesn’t show up on the city’s official MyCiTi Bus Rapid Transit routes; it’s easily overlooked on tourism maps, too. Unless you zoom way in on Google Maps, the town is unlabeled.
But on a recent map, the neighborhood is boldly highlighted, as are the nearby townships of Langa and Khayelitsha—both of which are also seldom in the spotlight. The map, from the Cape Town-based startup WhereIsMyTransport, is one of the first to chart in detail the city’s informal minibus taxi system.