Despite all the incentives to move cargo to rail, it’s just not happening , economist Mike Schüssler told delegates at the Road Freight Association’s recent annual conference. “We have seen the number of trucks increase from around 2000 a day in 1998 on Van Reenens pass on the N3 to around 6300 at present,” he said, even though not everyone in the trucking industry is thriving. But addressing high logistics costs by simply moving cargo from road to rail will call for a massive infrastructure investment if one takes into account the fact that 95% of the country rail network was built in 1938, he said. And while some inroads have been made, Schussler believes these have only been on two corridors. “They have increased the coal and the iron ore volumes and so the market share they claim to have gained is questionable.”
