South Africa’s transport infrastructure has failed dismally to deliver on its mandate – to provide the safe and reliable transport of goods with the efficiency to compete in the global economy. And the single biggest detractor is the volume of cargo moving by road compared to rail, in the view of SA Shippers’ Council chairman, Fanie Pretorius. “If you look at traffic that’s switched to road, it’s not by choice but rather because of the lack of service delivery. “Investment in rolling stock and infrastructure has not kept pace with development resulting in deterioration in operational efficiency.” According to Pretorius, rail accounts for 28% of longhaul transport, a share that has been declining over the past two decades. According to unconfirmed information this percentage is now below 20% “Companies are moving over 100 000 tons of coal (rail friendly transport) by road because Transnet Freight Rail doesn’t have the capacity,” he added. And the reasons for the deterioration in rail service are many and complex. A key factor is the lack of expertise at TFR. “The rail utility has lost specialist knowledge in the technical field,” says SASC executive director LM Pelser, “and that has resulted in poor decisionmaking with regards to equipment and operations. “On the operations side,” says Pretorius, “drivers are pushed through a fast-tracked training programme because of the experience lost to other countries like Australia – which explains why a number of incidents are clearly caused by human error.” The National Operations Centre was another grand idea. “However you have a lot of people who don’t understand the industry controlling centrally but not in real time and making decisions on issues that will affect flows. “The technical limitations of South Africa’s existing railway system are an additional concern – the fact that we have a narrow gauge infrastructure. But we have to live with it and learn to work smarter.” Pelser points out that it's not always speed that counts, but reliability. “Why is Oryx and the Richards Bay Coal line a success (world best) when it's also narrow gauge. We must not confuse ourselves with passenger rail. The extreme high speeds achieved with passenger trains are not needed for cargo.” Collaboration is the way, says Pretorius. “A lot of companies have ring-fenced wagons. South Africa as a whole needs to change. You need to collaborate as an industry and use wagons effectively. “Let’s all get together and come up with a collaborative plan – at the moment we’re all covering our own backs. What we need to do is ensure that wagons can do front and back legs to make the system more efficient.” Globally there was a similar move from rail to road, but the rest of the world has realised the prudence of prioritising rail, says Pelser. “In Brazil, for example, a lot of cargo moved to road. They realised that they had made a big mistake and invited South African rail specialists to help them – and rail in Brazil is making good progress. Why not use that knowledge in South Africa? In America, China, Japan to mention a few, rail is the preferred long-distance mode.” While no-one will deny that road is the more flexible option, Pelser believes that shippers have been spoilt by the Just in Time concept. “It’s nice to have your goods overnight, but is it always necessary? The spiral of how to do things more quickly has created expectations – but not everything needs to be done today.” And the best argument to demonstrate the need to move back to rail is the financial impact of the current reliance on road transport, says Pretorius. First there’s the cost of road accidents – the total cost of fatal crashes during the 2007-08 period was R13.27 billion. “Deteriorating infrastructure is costing motorists more than R200 billion a year while chronic under-spending creates additional user costs.” Another interesting statistic is the growth in sales of extra heavy vehicles – which tripled between 1999 and 2005 from 2514 to 8841. And South Africa’s traffic authorities haven’t done themselves any favours in terms of legislation to protect the road network. Pretorius points out that gross vehicle mass in South Africa is 56 tons while GVM in the US is 38. “Road infrastructure would have been prolonged if our maximum GVMA had remained at 48 tons prior to 1990,” he said. But Pelser points out that the move to higher GVMA was necessary. “If we had not made that move, 16.6% more vehicles would have been needed to convey the same amount of cargo.” The solution, in his view, lies in collaboration between supply chain stakeholders – sharing of information and searching for solutions together “Jointly agree on future strategies. If you do things in isolation you will not succeed. Obtain the buy-in and understanding of all role players, and success will be the result.
