Intermodal is the way to go – Cronin

South Africa will not retract
its decision to implement an
intermodal solution for the
transport of freight despite
resistance from road hauliers
who have had a monopoly
for years.
“It may come across
that we are anti-road for
the transport of freight,”
said deputy minister of
Transport Jeremy Cronin at
the Railways and Harbours
Conference and Exhibition
in Johannesburg, “but that
is not the case. The country
cannot afford to continue
moving the bulk of freight
by road. We need a serious
rethink of the issue.”
He said in the last study
done by government in
2008 it found that 935
million tonnes of freight
were moved by road at a
cost of R171 billion. “This
figure does not include
the externality costs such
as road maintenance,
infrastructure upkeep or
carbon emissions. Neither
did it factor in the cost of
accidents to the country.”
Cronin said the penny
had dropped for government
and the major infrastructure
spend to revitalise the
country’s rail capacity was
long overdue.
He said with road freight
being directly responsible
for some 96% of the
externality costs it was time
to rethink the rail option
seriously.
“Our railway system has
been running on empty
for far too long. It is time
to bring about change and
we have to do it quickly.
We don’t envision a system
where we go back to the
heydays of rail when it had
the freight monopoly, but
for the foreseeable future we
will be investing heavily in
rail to address the monopoly
by road.”
He said a modal balance
between road and rail was
long overdue. “It is a global
trend to combine the two
modes and it makes sense
for South Africa to embark
on this route.”
According to Cronin, rail
only carries some 23% of
the current freight load in
the country but only at 10%
of the cost. “Rail is cheaper
and it becomes even more
of an impressive figure if
one measures the effort of
moving freight. To ensure
our trade competitiveness
we have no other choice
but to bring about a more
proportionate movement of
goods in the country.”