South Africa intends to launch a national rail strategy, a bill that is proposed to become a legislation in 2018-2019, Jan-David de Villiers, Chief Director at the Department of Transport.
The primary intervention the draft White Paper proposes is rail sector investment and the involvement of the private sector as a potential source of funding, among others, in heavy-haulage and rolling stock.
The document proposes to exploit rail in high-speed, heavy-haul, heavy intermodal, as well as urban and regional rapid transit. “The primary intervention must rebalance investment among modes to position rail as South Africa’s transport backbone,” De Villiers says.
For the railway freight transport, the Draft White Paper proposes policy interventions such as implementing a standard gauge high performance national network.”As the balance sheet of State-owned freight rail operator Transnet cannot support the required infrastructure investment, in general, it would be necessary to develop additional government and private funding sources,” says De Villiers.
The Draft White Paper’s policy interventions for passenger rail include positioning passenger rail as the backbone of mobility.
Regarding the urban mobility, the document suggests that funding for urban rail transport will be primarily sourced from National Treasury.
“Urban rail planning will be undertaken by [provincial and municipal] transport authorities in conjunction with a central rail planning unit in with the Department of Transport,” says De Villiers.
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