Compared with its Southern African counterparts, South Africa is doing well in terms of rail safety, says Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) CEO Nkululeko Poya.

Speaking ahead of the release, in October, of the RSR’s yearly State of Safety report, he reiterated that the regulator was targeting the achievement of zero occurrences by 2020.

The State of Safety report covers level crossing incidents, people struck by trains, platform train interface injuries, mainline derailments and collisions, besides other aspects.

All operators issued with safety permits by the RSR were expected to submit railway occurrences and incidents data to the regulator, enabling it to produce the report.

“A cost-of-risk model will also be released, as well as the impact the RSR has had since its inception in 2005,” said Poya.

He pointed out that the RSR was also tasked with regulating three international train operators who operated in South Africa including Swazi Railways, Botswana Railways and Mozambique’s CFM Railways.

He noted that RSR issued permits to these international operators and also audited and inspected them.

“We are the most active railway regulator in the Southern African region. Some countries don’t have regulators at all and rely on us to do independent investigations on their behalf, which generally have a turnaround time of between four months and two years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Poya said the RSR is working on plans to compel rail operators to adhere to certain requirements to further improve rail passenger safety.

“Our suggestion is currently being reviewed by the Department of Transport and it will hopefully help us deal with the issue of railway reserve protection. We are in the process of updating our regulations to comply with the Constitutional Court judgment that says it is the responsibility of the operator to protect the lives of passengers on the train,” he said.