Trans­port prob­lems dur­ing South Africa’s World Cup could well be alle­vi­ated by a dynamic new pub­lic trans­port sys­tem called Over­ground.

Oper­at­ing in the West­ern Cape (Cape Town, Fran­schhoek, George, Her­manus, Klein­mond, Knysna, Paarl, Plet­ten­berg Bay, Som­er­set West, and Stel­len­bosch etc…), it is described as:

“a South African trans­port solu­tion that enables any one of us to drive the public—easily the most authen­tic pub­lic trans­port since the inven­tion of feet”.

Over­ground will allow vis­i­tors and locals to be dri­ven ‘safely, reli­ably and afford­ably’ by South Africans in their own vehicles.

The Over­ground will take care of the licens­ing red tape and pro­vide would-be dri­vers with a custom-made insur­ance pack­age, a call cen­tre, adver­tis­ing … ’ —every­thing you need to earn big bucks’.

Estab­lished by a group of gutsy and imag­i­na­tive young South African entre­pre­neurs, the trans­port sys­tem will allow every­day dri­vers to take home a slice of the World Cup Soc­cer pie.

The spin-off, they say, is employ­ment and income oppor­tu­ni­ties as dri­vers and ambas­sadors. “For the first time ever in World Cup his­tory, every­body wins”, says their pub­lic­ity blurb.

To sign up, prospec­tive dri­vers sim­ply have to have a car with all the cre­den­tials listed on their site:

• Be at least 21
• Have a safe car with per­sonal car insur­ance
• Be in pos­ses­sion of a valid South African ID (iden­tity doc­u­ment)
• Valid dri­vers licence (hav­ing dri­ven for at least two years)
• Hold a bank account
• Have a cell phone
• Be thrilled about the idea of using South Africans to make South Africa’s World Cup work.
• Be an entrepreneur!

In addi­tion, would-be par­tic­i­pants should be med­ically fit, have no con­vic­tions or refused a pub­lic dri­ving per­mit. Nor should they have had a learner’s or driver’s license cancelled.

The cre­ators have even estab­lished an online income cal­cu­la­tor to see how much prospec­tive dri­vers can earn for their hard work—and how much they can help over­come the gigan­tic trans­port shortfall.

Their call to action is hard to ignore:

“So sign up, dammit, and help get the tourists off the streets and into their seats! You’re the hero in the story of SA’s suc­cess. Europe should come and want to be our colony, Amer­ica should arrive and want to speak in our accent, Asia should drop their swords and learn how to fight with our knobker­ries, and we should host the world and have our peo­ple be hell of a proud of it”.

For fur­ther details, visit www.overground.co.za