Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, confirmed government’s commitment to improving rail safety when he addressed delegates at the annual Rail Safety conference in Stellenbosch on October 1.
Some 3 990 operational occurrences claimed the lives of 375 people during the last financial year according to the State of Safety Report 2018/19.
Although there has been a decrease of 11% in operational problems compared to the previous year, the minister still believes the number to be alarmingly high with 75% of the deaths the result of people struck by trains.
“These occurrences include derailments, collisions, level crossing accidents and occurrences where people were struck by moving trains,” the minister said.
Of the 375 fatalities, 30 were due to criminal activity. The minister reiterated the government’s role in ensuring safety for all rail commuters.
“In terms of safety, we are going to introduce a new security arrangement on the trains. Our envisaged situation is that these people will be trained in terms of crowd control and combat reaction because there are crooks who are stealing cables and doing all sorts of things, so we must be combat ready in terms of that,” he concluded. - Bjorn Vorster
