Toyota South Africa is spending more than R10-million to assist the local taxi industry in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.
The assistance comes in the form of more than 65 000 litres of sanitisers, 2 000 face masks, as well as COVID-19-related marketing initiatives.
Brilliant initiative
Some of the elements that were executed at the beginning of lockdown include COVID-19 educational billboards at some taxi ranks as well as a commuter safety animation video. Toyota has also created posters, flyers, vehicle decals and T-shirts that are currently being distributed to taxi associations.
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A total of 2 000 x 25 litres, 3 000 x 5 litres, 20 000 x 100ml, as well as 2 000 hand-wash dispensers have been distributed to regional taxi structures across the country’s nine provinces.
Under lockdown Level 4 regulations, minibus taxis can now operate for 12 hours (5am–7pm) – up 4 hours from Level 5 regulations. Loading capacity for minibus taxis remains at 70% of licenced passengers, with social distancing and other mitigating measures remaining in place.
“While current lockdown regulations may offer a glimmer of hope into life as we once knew it, at Toyota we believe that we need to intensify our fight against COVID-19 as we now have more commuters using public transport – compared to lockdown Level 5 when we only had essential service personnel operating,” says TSAM’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Leon Theron.
“We trust that our support with the distribution of sanitisers to the taxi industry will go a long way in terms of mitigating the rate of Coronavirus infections in the local public transport system,” concludes Theron.