The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa’s) national signalling upgrade project and its acquisition of new rolling stock from French manufacturer Alstom will significantly impact on commuter behaviour in South Africa, says consulting engineering firm GIBB GM Johann Rauch.

GIBB is the technical adviser to Prasa for the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal portions of the project and has been subcontracted by the technical adviser for the Western Cape project to provide reviews on the signalling design. “Without signalling being upgraded, new rolling stock will not be operable at the design levels required.”

He adds that, once the resignalling has been implemented and the new rolling stock is operational, Prasa will be able to significantly improve its service, which will impact on commuters’ in their choice of transport.

“I hope that the new rolling stock will be attractive enough to draw more commuters to rail. “Obviously, personal security and ticketing are also very important aspects of this project, as you cannot consider a rail service without considering the entire system,” Rauch notes, adding that security, ticketing and predictability of the service all influence commuters’ decision to use rail.

“I am confident that, if Prasa can achieve service levels at improved levels of predictability and reliability, people will . . . more [readily]choose rail over other modes of transport,” Rauch posits.

He notes that the three projects are at various levels of implementation, with the Gauteng project being the most advanced, as evidenced by the progress in the construction of the Gauteng Nerve Centre (GNC). The GNC will control all commuter traffic in Gauteng once construction has been completed.

Contractors for the KwaZulu-Natal project have been appointed and the project has progressed to the design phase. The Western Cape project is the latest project approved by Prasa.