The Future of Railway in SA
The Future of Railway in SA
Rail today serves passenger and freight mobility needs in countries across the globe. The public transportation sector has been one of the fastest-growing industries in South Africa since interprovincial travel via public transport was made available to the public. According to Wikipedia, the first railway was from Cape Town to Wellington and was worked by a small locomotive in 1859. The first passenger-carrying service was a small line of about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) built by the Natal Railway Company, linking the town of Durban with Harbour Point, which opened on June 26, 1860. The South African public relies on the railway sector as a means of transportation around major urban areas such as Johannesburg. Two different public companies operate cargo and commuter services: Transnet Freight Rail and PRASA. Transnet Freight Rail is the largest division of Transnet, a State Owned Corporation (SOC), wholly owned by the Government of South Africa, and is responsible for rail, ports, and pipelines.
The rail industry has long been a pillar of passenger mobility and freight transportation.
Today, the traditional railway industry provides roughly one-sixth of the world’s long-distance travel to the public. Metros and light rail in cities provide dependable, economical, and quick alternatives to driving, decreasing traffic congestion, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and local pollution. Freight rail allows the movement of high-capacity commodities over vast distances, giving access to trade for resources that would otherwise be stranded and aiding the functioning of significant industrial clusters.
Railways are among the least polluting and most efficient modes of transportation.
The railway industry is also the most energy diversified, despite its heavy reliance on electricity. Rail networks convey 8% of all motorised passenger movements and 7% of freight, although they consume just 2% of all energy used in the transportation sector. Rail services utilize less than 0.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) of oil and 290 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy (about 0.6% of world oil usage and more than 1% of global electricity use). They account for around 0.3% of direct CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning, as well as the same percentage (0.3%) of energy-related fine particulate matter emissions (PM2.5). Because of the great efficiency of train operations, rail saves more oil than it consumes and emits fewer emissions. On a well-to-wheel basis, if all services currently provided by railways were provided by road vehicles such as cars and trucks, global transportation-related oil consumption would increase by 8 mb/d (15%) and transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would increase by 1.2 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2-equivalent (CO2-eq).
The future of the railway industry will depend on two things: how it responds to rising transport demand as well as how it manages to compete for transport modes’ pressure on its infrastructure.
Growing incomes and populations in developing economies create a great demand for mobility, but social factors and the need for speed and flexibility favour vehicle ownership and air travel. Rising incomes are also supporting the rise in freight demand, where rising earnings, combined with digital technology, have sparked a surge in demand for faster delivery of higher-value, lighter-weight items. While the rail industry has significant competitive advantages, it would need to invest more strategically in rail infrastructure to leverage those business advantages, as well as increase efforts to boost commercial competitiveness and technological innovation.
According to the Base Scenario, annual rail infrastructure investment will reach USD 315 billion (United States dollars) in 2050, based on current projects at various stages of construction.
In this scenario, urban rail infrastructure construction reaches its fastest pace, as no significant new emphasis is placed on the rail industry in policymaking. The length of metro lines now under construction or planned for development in the next five years is double that of any five years between 1970 and 2015. As a result, passenger movements in the urban rail industry will expand at an unprecedented rate; worldwide activity will be 2.7 times larger in 2050 than it is now. The fastest-growing regions include India and Southeast Asia, which have seen more than a sevenfold increase in passenger rail trips, albeit from a low foundation. China’s, Japan’s, and the European Union’s urban rail activity climbed by more than twofold, 25%, and 45%, respectively, in the three nations with the highest levels of activity today.
Currently, Southern Africa’s railway system faces a variety of challenges
The liberalization of road transport resulted in a temporary reduction in traffic volume, which has since quickly increased. Because, unlike road travel, railway operating expenses are essentially set, a drop in traffic forced trains to run at a loss, with any profit going to personnel and fuel costs rather than maintenance and upkeep. Lack of investment in the rail system as a result of declining traffic and ageing infrastructure has resulted in unsustainable train networks.
Recent rail network renovation plans have focused mainly on the construction of new rail lines and implementing costly modifications, such as converting the entire network to European Standard Gauge tracks, as advocated by the African Union. Governments, not railway firms, are promoting these initiatives, which would prefer to revitalize existing infrastructure. While new railway lines can be advantageous in some situations, they are most successful when they are linked to productive industry, as the line to the Moatize coal mine in Mozambique is. The majority of the present rail infrastructure can be made operational with minor changes, but it is simply not working at full capacity. Additional capacity needs can be fulfilled by increasing freight loads to become viable, albeit this has yet to happen due to the present rail network’s unreliability and cost inefficiency when compared to road travel.
Sources:
https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/fb7dc9e4-d5ff-4a22-ac07-ef3ca73ac680/The_Future_of_Rail.pdf
https://www.sadc.int/themes/infrastructure/transport/railways/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_South_Africa
