City could help Metrorail

RECENTLY, the issue of the City of Cape Town’s intention to “take over” Metrorail surfaced in several publications, the most recent in Weekend Argus on June 24 . It is time to set the record straight to counter several disingenuous articles in the public domain.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) is the implementing arm of the National Department of Transport mandated by the Legal Succession Act of the South African Transport Services (Sats) Act 9 of 1989, as amended in November 2008. Its mandate is to ensure that at the request of the Department of Transport, rail commuter services are provided.

Prasa’s strategic plan takes account of the government’s National Development Plan, which provides ultimately for the devolution of government subsidy to local government level under certain conditions. The crux of such devolution of powers lies in ensuring rail remains an affordable mode of transport to the disenfranchised.

To this end, a Memorandum of Action between Prasa and the City of Cape Town was signed in 2015. The document clearly articulates the areas and scope of the partnership between the signatories. The objective of it is to facilitate delivery of priority projects, programmes and interventions with the strategic focus to achieve integrated public transport, recognising rail as the backbone in the Western Cape.

The memo details a comprehensive approach dealing with road and rail transport infrastructure, operations, services and systems; leading to the establishment of The Land Transport Advisory Board and Intermodal Planning Committee. Under the latter, 19 projects were identified. This collaboration would find fruition in a strategic business plan.

It is unfortunate that the momentum of the engagement was overshadowed by the city’s restructuring exercise. The restructuring affected some structures and slowed progress, leading to the Safety & Security project (referred to by Councillor Brett Herron in the above mentioned article) seemingly being wrested from him by his colleague, Councillor JP Smith.

The key focus of the mooted joint crime-fighting unit would be to minimise, and eventually eradicate, the theft of non-ferrous metal and infrastructure and to provide a more visible presence on trains and stations. The business case for the safety and security project is currently being reviewed by the law enforcement department and we await the outcome.

The memorandum lends itself to address other external issues that fall within the city’s domain. Most notably but not limited to; the lack of services resulting in informal rail reserve invasion, illegal electrical connections, disposal of wet waste on rail tracks, service delivery protests spilling on to the rail system, rampant crime and failure to deal with illegal scrap dealers.

Thus far the city is off to a poor start to integrate public transport; operating Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services parallel to existing rail corridors (in defiance of the intention to introduce feeder services) and recently revised fares forcing poor commuters from the metro south east corridor to spend more of their already constrained disposable income on transport.

To continue on this path is not sustainable nor in the travelling public’s interest. If these services were provided more competitively and pricing strategies applied more judiciously, rail commuters with weekly/monthly train tickets could, for instance, also benefit from MyCiTi buses during major train service disruptions as they currently do from Golden Arrow Bus Services.

An analysis of the contentious issue of subsidy shows the disparity between a subsidy of R76 per passenger for Gautrain, R15-R25 per passenger for buses (Golden Arrow and MyCiTi) and R3-R5 per passenger for Metrorail. It begs the question whether the more sensible option is not to apply a higher subsidy to the dominant mode where it would benefit the majority of commuters and the most economically vulnerable sector.

The principle of intergovernmental collaboration at regional level is already firmly entrenched; the Provincial Government of the Western Cape Transport and Public Works Department’s contribution to the elimination of level crossings, installation of high mast lighting at stations and the provision of scramblers for Metrorail’s mobile unit to address vandalism continue to benefit train users.

We welcome the safety and security project given that each socio-economic issue resolved by the city enables us to concentrate on our core mandate of providing affordable mobility to more than half of Cape Town’s public transport users. The stabilisation of the train service also requires the support of other national state organs such as the SAPS to apprehend the guilty and Department of Justice to prosecute offenders in terms of the Criminal Matters Amendment Act.

In contrast to officialdom’s lacklustre performance on this front, Metrorail’s Protection Services have made eight arrests this year which are being prosecuted under the Act. Our legal team will oppose bail and push for heavy sentences as a deterrent.

We are, however, concerned that despite very structured engagement with city officials, Metrorail’s commitment still seems uncertain. This infers that there seems to be a communication gap between transport officials, council and departments pertaining to rail-related issues and projects.

Hence we reassure the city of our commitment to continue to partner with them to improve the experience of our customers and urge the city to strengthen its commitments with the urgency it deserves.