The first direct flight between London's Heathrow and Durban's King Shaka International Airport has touched down in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Arriving at 5.20am, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was the first direct flight between the two hubs after the route announcement was made in May. Flight BA41 lasted a little over 11 hours. A warm welcome to @British_Airways as they touched down @kingshakaint for the very first time. We are pleased to have you be part of the KSIA family. pic.twitter.com/SDxKis8QZT — King Shaka Int (@kingshakaint) 30 October 2018 "A warm welcome to @British_Airways as they touched down @kingshakaint for the very...
As the world becomes smoggier, companies that rely on gas guzzling vehicles become more responsible for the future of clean air, and the planet as a whole. The latest firm to feel the heat is Uber. According to a report by Engadget, the company will introduce a "clean air" tax on rides taking place in London. But it's not going to combating global warming directly, or reducing the city's growing pollution issues. Instead, the 15 pence per mile tax, which Uber believes will be enough to raise some US$260-million, will go towards helping drivers purchase electric cars. This forms part of the company's...
As the MyCiTi Bus strike continues into its fourth day, the company has made an official statement on behalf of the City of Cape Town, announcing that it's seeking an interdict from the Western Cape High Court. “The City of Cape Town will, within the next few hours, apply for an urgent court interdict to protect MyCiTi personnel, passengers, and assets against those participating in an unprotected strike that has turned violent,” said the statement, which was posted on Facebook. According to the post, Wednesday’s protests saw two female bus drivers held hostage, buses stoned, and bus keys stolen to prevent...
Update, Tuesday 10am: The "wildcat" MyCiti bus strike continues into its second day, affecting a vast swathe of Cape Town. There are however more lines currently operating today than on Monday, when strike action began. "The following services are currently operating on routes: T02, X02, D01, D02, D03, D04, 232, 233, 234, 236 and 237," Cape Town's MyCiti bus service tweeted early on Tuesday. Update: #MyCiTiAlert: The following services are currently operating on routes: T02, X02, D01, D02, D03, D04, 232, 233, 234, 236 and 237. Updates to follow — MYCITI bus (@MyCiTiBus) 16 October 2018 As of 6am on Tuesday, a slew of...
Cape Town's public transport system is a nightmare; even the City of Cape Town itself hinted at it. But that doesn't mean there's been any tangible improvement experienced by commuters since. A video reportedly captured on Cape Town's central line on Tuesday shows just how congested the city's Metrorail rail network is. Initially published to a closed Facebook group by member Brendan Shaw, the video found its way onto Twitter on Wednesday. In the clip, a train is shown draped in commuters sitting on the train's roof, hanging out of windows, and clinging to the train's windscreen. The video has since garnered...
Update: The taxi strike affecting Cape Town and surrounds was suspended late on Monday. Cape Town's MyCiTi and Golden Arrow bus services may not operate in certain regions of the city tomorrow, as the provincial taxi strike is set to continue. On Monday, commuters were left stranded as trains and buses were late or suspended, and taxis refused to operate. Two buses were set alight in Khayelitsha, south east of Cape Town's city centre. Late Monday, MyCiTi failed to confirm that its service to the area -- namely its D01 and D02 service -- will be reinstated on Tuesday. "The City of Cape...
Ride-hailing service Uber has this month surpassed 10-billion trips worldwide. In a blog post published Tuesday, the company announced the milestone, which took it a little over eight years to reach. "We’ve hit some pretty exciting milestones together in the past, and this latest one is no different," it wrote. "On Sunday, June 10, 173 trips and deliveries started simultaneously at 10:12pm GMT, putting us over 10 billion completed trips." As for who those people were who pushed the company over the brink, five of them were eating fast food. "These trips happened in more than 21 countries across five continents, in cities like...
Uber Lite is now a thing, but it's not a new offering from the ride-hailing service. Instead, it's a new app, keeping up with tech companies' recent trend of developing low bandwidth, low footprint apps for emerging markets. "Uber Lite is a simple version of the rider app that saves space, works on any network, and on any Android phone," said Shirish Andhare, the company's head of product for emerging markets, in an announcement. Uber Lite weighs in at around 5MB, notably slimmer than the 40.4MB required to install the traditional Android app. Visually, it sheds the default initial map overlay on...
Get your sun hats, parasols and high-tech solar-powered vehicles ready. The latest edition Sasol Solar Challenge endurance event will kick off in September 2018. The competition's leaderboard is determined by total distance covered across a seven day period by vehicles powered by the sun's rays. The team with the most distance covered wins the title. And unlike traditional endurance racing, it's not the first team across the finish line who receives the plaudits. 15 teams from Australia, China, Japan, the Netherlands, the US and South Africa, will take part in the challenge, including two teams who have not competed in the...
Remember WannaCry? It was 2017's big security story, infecting more than a quarter-million Windows computers at its most prolific point. But its prominence died down after tech doctors quelled its spread. But like a bad case of influenza, it's definitely not dead, and reports suggest aircraft manufacturer Boeing found that out the hard way on Wednesday. According to the Seattle Times, the firm's 777 assembly line in North Carolina was affected, but it was contained to a small number of machines. "The vulnerability was limited to a few machines. We deployed software patches. There was no interruption to the 777 jet program...
Feeling bad about not tipping your Uber driver for making your day? If saying "thanks" is just too cold for you, from today, riders can now give their drivers monetary appreciation through the app. The feature first hit the United States and Canada in July 2017, but has now been enabled in South Africa some seven months later. "Over the years, we’ve heard a lot of drivers asking us to roll out an in-app tipping function, so their clients can more easily reward great service and the act of going above and beyond what’s expected," explained Alon Lits, Uber sub-Saharan Africa's...
The autonomous car industry has been dealt a major blow this week. On Sunday, an Uber self driving vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. The 49-year-old pedestrian was reportedly walking alongside her bicycle "outside the crosswalk" when she was hit. It's the first time a self driving car was involved in a pedestrian death. The car involved was a modified Volvo XC90 fitted with Uber's sensing technology, and occupied by a human in the driver's seat keeping tabs on the vehicle's systems. Additionally, said systems are supposed to react to obstacles in the vehicle's path and markings along the road,...
Uber South Africa now has its own Incident Response Team, the company announced Tuesday. This incident system has been operational as trial since December 2017, however the system is this week live for all riders in South Africa. Riders can also now submit safety concerns (along with phone number and description of the incident) through the Uber app. They will then receive a "call-back" from Uber's response team. "We have listened to the hundreds of thousands of riders using the Uber app in South Africa and they've expressed the need to be able to speak with our teams in the event of...
The longest Uber trip ever recorded in South Africa spanned between Cape Town and Durban via Bloemfontein. We're not sure who this dedicated driver was, nor if the passenger knew that aircraft have been a viable form of travel for nearly a century now. But these long, seemingly unnecessary Uber trips aren't as rare as you may think. Just ask Kenneth Bachman a resident of New Jersey, USA. According to CBS, Bachman last week paid more than US$1600 (R19 000) for an Uber trip from a frat party at West Virginia University back home to the east coast of the country. Sorry,...
Sci-fi gone real is a series that focusses on the extravagant concepts dreamt up in the world of sci-fi, exploring just how close they are to becoming a reality. In this piece, we will be exploring the topic of transportation. From teleportation to flying cars, reality is rapidly becoming stranger than fiction. If you’re over the hassles and limitations of contemporary transportation, then this article might hold some hope for you yet. Teleportation Imagine a world without traffic jams or twenty-hour flights; a world where distance is merely the obstacle of scientific and mathematical endeavours. Well, this world might be a lot...
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