Musical Mother City

Next year (2014) Cape Town has been chosen as the World Design Capitol, unfortunately submissions have now closed, but here's a thought regarding the taxi industry ...

At the moment taxi's all over South Africa use their hooters to get the attention of their passengers, and also each other, passing pretty women, and occasionally as a warning to other road users.

This may seem counter-intuitive to some, but what if each taxi route had it's own call tune and the taxis on that route had a musical air horn to play it, for example Manenberg is obvious, La Cucaracha for Sea Point etc.

Now air horns (musical hooters), like sirens are not allowed by private citizens in South africa, so they can be more easily regulated which gives a No. of advantages.

• The taxi will have to be fitted with the device which means it should go through a roadworthy test in order for it to be allowed to operate.
• It will only be able to work a specific route (according to it's call tunes) which should keep poachers and hence taxi-wars at bay.
• Regular hooters will be more apparent to other road users as they will no longer be needed to summon passengers.
• Visitors to Cape Town will have a clearer understanding of where the taxi is going before boarding.
• Lastly as the title of this blog states, Cape Town will be turned into a musical city, while being easier to navigate and hopefully safer.