The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (PRASA’s) Metrorail service will remain a subsidised service following its current multibillion-rand rolling stock, station, depot and signalling upgrade programme.
PRASA group CEO Lucky Montana has allayed fears that ticket prices will increase substantially once the current upgrade programme is complete.
Subsidies for urban rail passenger rail transport increased from R1.4-billion in 1996, to the current R3.8-billion a year.
“We won’t see a correlation between the price of the ticket and the investment PRASA is making,” says Montana.
“Many of our passengers earn between R800 and R2 500 a month. This is not a lot of money. We cannot pass the investment on to them. If you do so, you start taking them out of the economy.”
Montana avers, however, that increased passenger volumes on an improved Metrorail service should, over time, contribute more to PRASA’s purse.
Yearly passenger trips declined from 700-million in 1982 to 390-million in 1993, increasing to the current roughly 900-million.
Montana also comes to the defence of the Gautrain high-speed rail system, which currently receives around R850-million in subsidies a year.
He notes that the R20-billion-plus government invested to build the Gautrain was not for the sake of raking in profit, but rather to buy an effective, more productive Gauteng economy, with less road congestion.
“When you build railway lines you want to create a push from cars to public transport. If you do not put in money, how will you be successful? Infrastructure like the Gautrain cannot recover all costs from passengers,” says Montana.
“Short-term cost-benefit analysis does not work.”
Gautrain Management Agency CEO Jack van der Merwe adds that public transport is still a “mode of force, and not choice”, in South Africa, with South Africans aspiring to car ownership.
The Gautrain, with 65% black patronage, provides a fast, high-quality experience set to compete directly with private car use.
“As our ridership goes up, we pay less subsidies. We are only in our second year of operating the full system,” says Van der Merwe.
The Gautrain system carries around 60 000 train passengers a day, up from 45 000 passengers recorded in July 2013, and 26 000 in April 2012.
“We believe we won’t be paying subsidies in a few years’ time,” says Van der Merwe.
Government pays operating subsidies to Gautrain operator Bombela.