Transport and Public Works
With respect to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has been signed between his Department and the Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (Prasa):
(a) What challenges have been successfully mitigated, (b) what working objectives have been set and (c) what are the details, including time frames if available, for their realisation?
(a) My Department has supported PRASA in the following ways:
• Interim bus service: An Operations, Business and Implementation Plan has been developed by the Department for the provision of an interim rail-replacement bus service on the Central Line corridor. The service would transport by road, passengers who would ordinarily have used the Central Line rail service, which remains suspended on some routes. The plan is now being considered by PRASA and engagement on the way forward is ongoing.
• Vegetation clearing: The control and eradication of vegetation in the railway reserve is critical to ensure a safe environment for the operation of trains. Rail reserves, yards, and infrastructure assets (substations, relay rooms, etc.) have experienced vegetation overgrowth due to the non-award of vegetation control contracts by PRASA and, therefore, the Department has worked with PRASA to clear vegetation in the following locations:
o Southern Line: Cape Town to Simons Town
o Northern Line: Salt River to Bellville
o Central Line: Cape Town to Mutual / Langa / Pinelands
o Cape Flats Line: Maitland to Heathfield
This project commenced on the 4th of January 2021 and ended on the 31st March 2021, and has achieved its objectives.
• Support for the relocation of informal settlements: The Department is participating in the broader effort to relocate informal settlements in the rail reserve through cooperation with the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements, the City of Cape Town and PRASA. The focus is on identifying a suitable site for relocation. The location of informal settlements on the Central Line is one of the challenges preventing full restoration of the service.
(b) The objective of the MOU is “[t]o record the Parties’ commitment to cooperate and coordinate efforts for purposes of improving passenger rail services, operations and management, infrastructure and assets, information and monitoring, and safety and security in implementing an interim solution and restoring services previously provided by the Central Line, and to provide a mechanism to facilitate this objective.”
(c) No additional timeframes have been set. My Department will continue engaging with PRASA to identify areas where additional support can be provided to fully restore the Central Line and to fix rail more broadly.
