Despite Bolt and Uber bringing massive changes to the transport landscape in South Africa’s cities, the Gauteng-City Region Observatory’s 2023/24 Quality of Life survey shows that few Gauteng residents make regular use of e-hailing services.

Of the people 13,700 people surveyed, almost two-thirds said they never use e-hailing services at all. For those who do, most only e-hail a couple of times a month. Only 1.2% said they use ‘e-hailing or metered taxis’ as their main mode of transport.

The GCRO surveyed people across the province, including areas far from the big metros where e-hailing services are primarily available. The 2023/4 survey included a separate question on e-hailing specifically.

The majority of regular e-hailing users rely primarily on minibus taxis. They likely take Ubers when minibus taxis aren’t available. More women than men e-hail, and the majority of e-hailing taxi users are in the lower and middle social class brackets.