TFR and customers debate service delivery issues

THE DISCONNECT between the service delivery perceptions of Transnet Freight Rail on one hand and its customers on the other was a subject of lively debate at last week’s inaugural SA Shippers’ Council conference in Johannesburg. SA Association of Freight Forwarders’ executive member Chris Richards drew attention to the issue of turnaround times. “The market has a problem with the time taken from collection of the container to availability – in other words it’s taking too long from collection at Durban Container Terminal to availability at City Deep,” he said. While TFR CEO Siyabonga Gama acknowledged that there was room for improvement, he said the rail utility was making immense progress on this score. “In the past it could take up to 196 hours – we have reduced that by 51% to around 96 hours and want to reduce it further to 56 hours. “We have a lot of work to do at the shunting yards in Durban and Johannesburg and are also paying closer attention in terms of how to bring containers and trains into the stack. Our target is to do the whole cycle – Durban to City Deep and back – in 96 hours,” he said. The question of service failure was raised by SACD Freight’s Dennis Trotter. And here Gama conceded that this had been a particular problem over the past 10 days. “We have been heavily hit by cable theft. “It’s very difficult for us to control because we are dealing with syndicates. “Sometimes we make progress and arrests are made but we have to continue to be vigilant. We are buying helicopters to police the railway to prevent service disruptions and are looking at introducing more diesel locomotives. “Unfortunately in the current economic climate a lot of people are making a lot of money out of cable theft.”