Passenger fleet revamp a reason to celebrate, says consultancy

26th June 2015

By: Dylan Stewart

Creamer Media Reporter

  

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State-owned rail operator the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (PRASA’s) rolling stock fleet renewal programme will provide a vital boost for South Africa’s economy and help establish a meaningful passenger railway industry in the country, says consultancy and auditing firm KPMG infrastructure advisory head De Buys Scott.

He notes that the programme, together with Transnet’s investment into freight rail logistics, has the potential to vastly improve South Africa’s logistics sector by reducing vehicle transport, thereby significantly easing the pressure on regional highways in the country.

The project will also create about 7 000 direct jobs and about 70 000 indirect jobs.

By June next year, the first batch of 20 six- carriage trains will arrive from rail systems, equipment and services provider Alstom Transport’s Brazil facility; this will begin the process of replacing the ageing metro passenger fleet currently operating in South Africa’s major cities.

The new trains will not only be twice as fast but will also have double the carrying capacity of the old trains, says Scott.

He further highlights that all the new units are required to eventually be 65% locally manufactured, adding that, where government has previously fallen short in terms of acting in the best interests of the nation, its success in feeding money back into the South African economy is a result of better legislative mechanisms promoting localisation.

These mechanisms have been implemented by the Department of Trade and Industry to identify strategic localisation industries such as rail.

Meanwhile, PRASA has started construction of its manufacturing facilities in Dunnottar, Gauteng, with the first batch of locally manufactured trains expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Scott points out that, before the project was initiated in 2013, there had been no new investment in South Africa’s metro passenger rail system since the beginning of the 1980s. He adds that government’s failure to maintain South Africa’s rail facilities is likely to have had a significant negative impact on gross domestic product.

He notes that the much-needed upgrade project also involves upgrading depot and maintenance facilities, which are also heavily aged, adding that certain processes, such as revamping the signalling equipment and railway track, started in 2014.

The renewal programme will span two ten-year periods, during which about 1 200 new trains will be provided. Government has budgeted about R60-billion for each period. In monetary terms, this is the largest South African metro rail procurement project ever, says Scott.

He adds that less than half of the existing fleet is currently operable, hence, government’s decision in 2013 to undertake the project, following a feasibility study.

At the start of the project, in October 2013, Alstom Transport announced that it had signed a contract with PRASA to supply 600 passenger trains from 2015 to 2025.

Scott reiterates that PRASA’s renewal project is currently only focused on intracity transport and envisions that a separate long-distance rail revamp feasibility study will be under way for PRASA’s long-distance division Shosholoza-Meyl within the next 18 months.

Edited by Samantha Herbst
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

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