Johannesburg – Nearly half of all school pupils in Gauteng walk to school, Statistics SA said on Tuesday.

According to its national household travel survey for Gauteng, 42.5% of pupils walked all the way to their school.

A total of 22.4% used taxis, while 21.2% were passengers in a car or truck.

“Only, 2.3% of learners used trains as their mode of travel in the province.”

Those who attended higher education institutions were more likely to use a car or truck, as the driver (32.5%), and taxis (32.2%) to reach their destination.

According to the survey, around 3.2 million people attended educational institutions in Gauteng, ranging from pre-school to higher education facilities.

Those in metropolitan areas (83.7%) were more likely to attend institutions than those living in urban (14%) and rural areas (2.3%).

Regarding the province’s working population, around 85.2% of workers were found in metropolitan areas, with 13% in urban areas.

Around 43% of workers in Gauteng used public transport as their main mode of transport to work, whereas around 44% used private transport, and 12.2% walked to work.

“Out of about two million workers who used public transport, the majority used taxis (70.9%), followed by those who used trains (17.2%) and those who used buses (12%),” Stats SA said.

There were around 313 000 households with at least one bicycle in working order in Gauteng, and 23 000 of those owned more than three bicycles and lived in metropolitan areas.

Around 39% of households had access to or owned cars, and 4.4% had access to a company car.

Nearly 40% of people aged 18 years and older had a driver’s licence. The City of Tshwane (42.7%) had the highest proportion of people with driver’s licences.

The non-availability of buses (12.5%), reckless driving by taxi drivers (10.3%), and taxis being too expensive (9.5%) were the three leading transport-related problems faced by households in Gauteng.

Around 58.4% of households that used taxis complained about the behaviour of taxis drivers, followed by the facilities at taxi ranks (58.1%).

Of the households that made use of buses, 43.6% were dissatisfied with facilities at bus stops and 38.3% with overcrowding on buses.