Back on track: Revitalising SA’s rail service

BY JESSIE TAYLOR

Rail is an essential economic infrastructure that offers affordable transport to passengers and is key in transporting freight across the country. But various challenges, including widespread theft and vandalism of rail infrastructure, have seen the use of rail decreasing over the last several years. However, in a bid to increase economic activity, the government and state-owned enterprises have several plans to put the rail service back on track.

AN AFFORDABLE TRANSPORT SOLUTION

In 2020, around 150 000 workers still relied on trains – a decrease from some 700 000 South Africans in 2013. The decrease can be in part ascribed to a service failure, with almost half of the respondents surveyed in the National Household Travel Survey saying that they hadn’t used trains because none were available. Others indicated dissatisfaction with travel times: the average travel time by train grew from 74 minutes in 2013 to 107 minutes in 2020.

More than 86% of passengers listed overcrowding, due to limited carriages in service, as the primary cause of dissatisfaction.

Yet rail remains the most affordable mode of public transport, with an average monthly cost of R581 for working South Africans.

These partnerships feature advanced technologies and additional security personnel

Rail also plays an important role in transporting freight, with more than a quarter – around 40 million tonnes – of all freight transported by rail in 2020. This percentage indicated the lowest in a decade, in part due to the economic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and in part due to a decline of the rail system as a result of theft and vandalism of critical infrastructure.

South Africa’s rail, port, and pipeline company, Transnet, is responsible for the upkeep of around 31 000 kilometres of track across the country.

Transnet Freight Rail is the state-owned enterprise’s single largest division and focuses on heavy haul coal and iron ore export lines.

In his State of the Nation Address in February, President Cyril Ramaphosa says our economy could not grow without efficient ports and railways. “The poor state of passenger rail in South Africa has a direct and detrimental impact on the lives of our people,” he says.

Because our railway infrastructure forms the backbone of the logistics and transport value chain, its key to reviving the country’s economy. For this reason, the rail system has been earmarked as integral to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan.

The President’s plans for the rail system include increasing its competitiveness by moving more freight from road to rail.

Rail service providers MetroRail – operated by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) – and Transnet have been challenged by theft and vandalism of infrastructure. In addition, MetroRail suffered a spate of arson attacks, which reduced its Western Cape fleet from 85 trains servicing around 100 stations to only 32 trains by January 2020.

Transnet Freight Rail lost 354 227 meters of overhead cables to vandalism and cable theft between April 2019 and January 2020 alone, resulting in an average of 21 trains being cancelled per day.

The “exponential increase” in incidents over the last five years has resulted in increased tonnage and revenue losses and increased repair costs, says Transnet CEO Portia Derby. The financial implications of this have been more than R4 billion.

REHABILITATION OF THE RAIL NETWORk

However, there are plans and projects in place to address these challenges.

The government is working hard to rehabilitate the passenger rail network in 10 priority corridors, including the Southern Line in Cape Town and the Mabopane Line in Pretoria.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says these ten priority corridors of the PRASA passenger rail network are on track to resume services by December. The agency has also been working to clear illegal settlements on and around the network, he says.

There is also a new capital investment strategy in place at PRASA, says Minister Mbalula, which includes investing in locomotives to service passengers. Capital transfers to passenger rail are set to increase from R12.6-billion in 2022/23 to R13.5-billion in 2024/25. These funds will go towards the refurbishment of coaches, rolling stock, fleet renewal, signalling and increased security of the rail infrastructure.

To improve service delivery, Transnet has started the process of providing third-party access to its freight rail network with the view of increasing activity on the container corridor between Durban and City Deep in Gauteng Transnet has also developed partnerships with the private sector to address cable theft and vandalism on the freight rail network.

These partnerships feature advanced technologies and additional security personnel.

Aside from these partnerships, Transnet and PRASA have teamed up with state-owned enterprises Eskom and Telkom to tackle theft and vandalism of critical infrastructure through the Economic Sabotage of Critical Infrastructure (ESCI) Forum.

The four entities together experience 54 000 incidents of economic sabotage annually.

The Forum has established a multi-disciplinary unit to address economic sabotage, extortion at construction sites, and vandalism of infrastructure, as well as a Police Task Team on Cable Theft and Damage to Essential Infrastructure.

These measures aim to reduce the delays and service delivery challenges associated with the rail service in South Africa and will increase the network’s potential to act as an economic catalyst.