Thanks to the Mathematics and Physics Department, the Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) now has a better understanding of their customer’s expectations.

The largest carrier of road passengers in the Cape Town Metropole, GABS enlisted the help of CPUT to conduct a survey that focused on their customer’s experiences and expectations.

The result was a 65-page Customer Satisfaction Survey.

HANDOVER: CPUT’s Dr Chris Nhlapo hands over the Customer Satisfaction Survey to Nic Cronje, CEO of Golden Arrow Bus Services

Head of the Department, John Farmer says they jumped at the opportunity of collaborating with GABS, which allowed them to give students an opportunity to put their skills to practice.

Over a period of several months, students conducted face-to-face interviews with passengers at bus stops in Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Killarney, Cape Town and Bellville.   

Students also distributed questionnaires to passengers on busses travelling various routes.

Lecturer Alphonce Bere says the results provide a clear picture of customers’ experiences and expectations as well as a profile of GABS clientele.

The study shows that timelines of buses, fares, the safety with which bus drivers operate buses and courtesy of bus drivers are considered to be the most important things to passengers.

Bere says GABS also received low ratings for availability of buses during weekends and there were concerns around fares and the validity of tickets.  

John Dammert, Corporate Development Manager at GABS commended CPUT staffers and students for their hard work.

By Candes Keating

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Due to excellent work from the Mathematics and Physics Department, the Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) understands the needs of their passengers and knows areas where they need to improve their service offerings.

This was revealed by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Francois Meyer, during the official handover ceremony of the Customer Satisfaction Survey Report for Golden Arrow Bus Services, held at Bellville campus recently.

Vice-Chancellor, Prof Chris Nhlapo, highlighted that Golden Arrow had contracted the Department of Mathematics and Physics five times (2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022), to conduct a customer satisfaction survey with its customer base. “Handover events for the project's technical report have taken [place] many [five] times in the past! And thanks to Mr John Farmer! – Community Engagement,” Nhlapo remarked.

He stated that the purpose of the ceremony, over the years has been and still is:

• To offer the University an opportunity to recalibrate its social ownership.
• Offers GABS an opportunity to know its customers better and adjust the services accordingly,
• To offer CPUT students an opportunity to train and learn about Research Methodology and Research Ethics (Human Subject - Ethical Clearance).
• It is really about who owns these universities?
• Do they know their communities?
• How do they treat them and relate to them?
• What do they teach them?
• What is the future of these universities?
• Can our universities provide credible solutions to our communities?
• African universities MUST fulfil some of these societal expectations.

Nhlapo enthused: “To say I am happy to be part of today’s handover event, will simply be an understatement, an oversimplification in terms, and not a sincere and fair depiction of the magnitude of this occasion and a complete betrayal of my feelings. CPUT has a standing contract research relationship with Golden Arrow Bus Services going back ten years.”

In his acknowledgement of the report, Meyer said: “This survey has helped to inform many strategic decisions over the last many years. It helped us to serve our passengers as it provides such invaluable performance gage and give us insight into who are our passengers are and what they need from us. The survey is therefore such a handy tool in running a business.”

In his remarks, Prof Joseph Kioko, Dean: Faculty of Applied Sciences, said for the past 10 years or so when “this partnership has run, it has been a wonderful, almost unique, platform for us to work towards the three main pillars of Higher Education: Learning and Teaching, Research and Scholarship, and Community Engagement – our golden triangle”.

Kioko said: “For an enterprise such as Golden Arrow Bus Services or a Metropole such as the City of Cape Town or the Province of the Western Cape, which must necessarily have an eye on a prosperous and sustainable future, this has to do with using data to leverage effective marketing, to build and provide better products and services, to strategise and to design solutions for our customers and our people, and so on. This also applies to universities such as ourselves. And whereas this partnership has sought to advance those goals, when I think about us, as a faculty, the impact of this partnership goes even deeper.”

Acting Head of Department of Mathematics and Physics, Dr Thomas Farrar, provided the presentation of survey results. Dr David Phaho, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Technology Innovation and Partnerships handed over the survey to Ricardo Mackenzie, Western Cape MEC for Mobility and Prof Gilingwe Mayende, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Operations, delivered a vote of thanks.

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Achieving the Dream (ATD) presented CPUT with a special 20th anniversary award at DREAM: the Siyaphumelela Network Award held at Orlando, Florida in the United States of America.

Dr Xena Cupido, Director: Fundani CHED, said the Siyaphumelela Network Award celebrated the work of South African participant institutions in advancing equity and driving student-centred transformation. Dr Nosisana Mkonto and Prof Muhammad Nakhooda accepted the award on CPUT's behalf. The Siyaphumelela Team at CPUT, consists of the chair, Cupido, Prof Hanlie Dippenaar, Dr Lizel Hudson, and data expert, Dr Thomas Farrar who is also the head of Mathematics and Physics Department. The team has been interrogating diverse data repositories and engaging in regular conversations as they drew insights and unpacked data to develop a far clearer picture of student needs at CPUT, said Cupido.

She said over the last four years, the Siyaphumelela Project at CPUT under her leadership–and co-chaired by Nakhooda, “has laid the foundations to understand the meaning and drivers of student success in the constantly changing context of CPUT and, together with partners at University of the Western Cape and University of Cape Town, its place in the larger landscape of the Western Cape”.

The Siyaphumelela Project is an objective of the larger Kresge Foundation’s Education Program, which works towards supporting colleges and universities around the world to better understand and support the most vulnerable students along their chosen academic journeys. The Annual Achieving the Dream Conference brings all benefactors of these projects together to share experiences and talk through best practices. “Important lessons and achievements are discussed, with shared stories from very diverse international higher education contexts,” Cupido said.

Nakhooda, sourced the data and presented it in new ways so that it becomes not only accessible, but also meaningful and actionable. He said the Siyaphumelela Student Success Initiative seeks to empower universities to better design their systems in an integrated way, around unique cohorts, unique needs, and for unique contexts. “In order to realise this aim, one must actively search for various data sources, that together, create a holistic picture of what constitutes student success, rather than the singular measures of throughput and retention.”

Cupido added that CPUT has committed itself through a memorandum of understanding signed in 2020, to be a participant university in the national Siyaphumelela Student Success Project. She said the institution has pledged to create a student-centred culture at CPUT, “to reduce prejudices based on gender and race, and to support student success by improving institutional capacity in this regard through the collection and interrogation of data that may be indicators of student application, retention, support and success”.

Mkonto, Head of Student Transition, Access, Retention, and Success (STARS) Unit and First Year Experience (FYE) Coordinator, said the project, along with Kresge's objective to aid vulnerable students, intersects with FYE initiative and the STARS Unit. She said these initiatives collectively aim to provide comprehensive support to students, enabling them to effectively adapt to university life, actively engage in their academic pursuits, and ultimately succeed in their studies. At the Achieving the Dream conference, academics shared challenges, opportunities, and best practices in achieving student success. Two things that stood out for her at the conference include:

• The use of data to understand the students’ journey through the university.
• Scholar awards where students shared their personal journeys towards achieving academic success.

“Through such engagements, CPUT can learn how to effectively use data to gain deeper insight into understanding the student journey and integrate student voice to cultivate student success.”

Cupido added that the students’ success is “everybody's business, from administration, support, academic, professional through to leadership”. She said CPUT has worked toward developing the necessary structures through programmes such as FYE mentors and retention officers, tutors and teaching assistants, working with data interns to understand and interpret data. “Vision 2030 has been fundamental in guiding the process.”

Reflecting on the award, Cupido said: “This is a recognition of the work being done at CPUT to prioritise students and their success, as future leaders, responsible and responsive citizens, willing to make a difference in the lives of others.”

She said the project culminated in the STARS Unit in Fundani CHED and the development of a STARS committee, a sub-committee of the Senate Learning and Teaching committee. “Here we will be able to track the student support interventions offered and the impact it has on student success.”

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.