Road or rail? That has been the question for several years in South Africa.With most of the country’s cargo moving on trucks from the various port cities to the economic heart in Gauteng, resuscitating the railways is long overdue
.Historically, freight transport in South Africa was rail driven and formal statistics were available for this sector, but transport liberalisation and eventual deregulation has seen a complete move to road transport.As logistics costs continued to soar, not to mention the battering road infrastructure was taking, reducing the reliance on road became a clear priority.Actual rail capacity has, however, been declining over the past few years despite ongoing efforts to improve and increase the country’s rail offering.
“Unfortunately, to change a railway takes time – and there was a marked improvement during the first half of the previous decade,” said Professor Jan Havenga of the Department of Logistics at the University of Stellenbosch. “Sadly, though, in the last years of state capture too much emphasis was placed on locomotive renewal and too little on systems and civil infrastructure – and this is what led to this decline.”
All, however, was not lost said Havenga, indicating that the current team at Transnet was working hard to turn the situation around. “Their efforts are clear to see, and I have very high hopes that the railway has turned the corner. I’m also, in a strange way I suppose, pleased that in many sectors demand outstrips supply. That is a good sign and means that if they can get capacity sorted, develop some new service designs, and work on reliability, people will return to rail.”According to Havenga, to deliver a better rail solution, road and rail interfaces are required (for line haul and last mile).“It is not road versus rail, but rather road and rail as a solution,” he said.
“Therefore, it is critical that there is cooperation between road and rail. Private investment in these cooperative ventures is just as important.”Also, rail tariffs need to be competitive with those of road.“But maybe, most of all, we need a leap of faith from logistics service providers to invest in the rail cooperatives to ensure that the learning curve will make road/rail transfers more efficient with lower cost.”
Havenga has long advocated for an intermodal solution for South Africa. While many may argue that rail stands no chance, he believes that the focus within Transnet is most certainly exactly where it should be. “Most of the building blocks are falling into place,” he said. “The biggest challenges are skills and investment.”According to Havenga education is where the near permanent damage to the country and its logistics performance lies.“On the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, South Africa consistently scores in the lowest five of all countries as far as basic math and science education is concerned,” he said.
