61% of formal Gauteng households have cars

According to ROOTS 2010, the Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB) and Caxton/CTP’s urban retail and readership survey, 61% of formal households in Gauteng have one or more cars in the household. Centurion in Pretoria ranks as the top suburb in Gauteng in terms of vehicles per household – almost 96% of the area have one or more vehicles in the household. On the other end of the scale and ranked 50th in Gauteng, you have the suburb of Evaton (Vaal) where only 15% of households have one or more cars in the household. Some of the high incidence suburbs with one or more vehicles in the household other than Centurion include the Ruimsig area (95%), Benoni and Pretoria East (94%), Bedfordview/ Edenvale and Fourways (93%), Lower incidence areas include Zola, Chiawelo and Orlando in Soweto (15%-20%) and Sebokeng (Vaal) and Tsakane/ KwaThema (Ekurhuleni) at 22%. ROOTS 2010 also measured some other transportation elements including the mode of transport Gauteng suburban households used when households go shopping – an important fundamental for retailers to get to grips with.

On average, across the Gauteng suburbs, measured 54% use their own car, 7% use someone else’s car, 31% use a taxi and 7% walk or cycle as their main form of transport when shopping. Only 0.2% used the train and 0.9% uses the bus when shopping. According to the survey, area differentials again need to be considered when analysing the averages. For instance, 90% of Sandton residents use their own vehicle when off to the shops, 69% of Dobsonville in Soweto use a taxi and almost 40% of Pretoria Central households use their feet.