Transport and Public Works

PRASA’s response to the challenges it is facing are detailed in its “Turnaround (Stabilisation and Recovery) Strategy”.

For the rest of this year (2017), PRASA and Metrorail will work towards stabilising and restoring the Metrorail service through the following interventions:

• Recovery of rolling stock;
• Recovery of infrastructure;
• Consolidation of the fragmented engineering function; and
• Focusing on operational safety.

Several accelerated turn around actions have been identified by PRASA for the Western Cape Region, which will steadily seek to:

• Increase train set availability over the next year, from the current 60 train sets to 80 sets within a year;
• Improve the availability of rotating machines and wheels, materials and spares;
• Reduce signal infrastructure-related delays;  and
• Reduce perway infrastructure-related delays.

In addition, a number of actions have been identified  to address the alarming increase in vandalism on the network, which has had a detrimental impact on reliability and rail safety. These  include the following:

• Collaborate with the City of Cape Town’s “Copperheads” (City of Cape Town Anti-Metal Theft Unit) to police thieves, vandals and illegal scrap dealers;
• Publicise Metrorail Protection Services arrests;
• Support and participate in the NON-FERROUS METALS CRIME COMBATING COMMITTEE (NFMCCC);
• Publicly condemn the  destruction of state assets in every public statement;
• Encourage stakeholders, including organised business, to condemn this destruction and other forms of vandalism;
• Offer financial rewards for information leading to the conviction of perpetrators;
• Engage with SAPS to prioritise the actions of the Rapid Rail Police Unit on rail-related offences in terms of the Legal Succession Act 9 of 1989;
• Lobby National Government for the promulgation of the Criminal Matters Amendment Act (CMAA) which imposes far stricter bail conditions and longer jail time for offenders;
• Lobby local authorities and related industries to resolve social issues that affect the provision of train services in the central service area. These include, but are not limited to:
  • Providing safe street-to-street access for communities across railway lines (bridges/subways);
  • Addressing illegal electrical connections across or underneath rail tracks;
  • Addressing illegal, informal and unsafe ingress onto railway reserves (shacks erected etc.);
  • Preventing the disposal of wet waste and sewerage on tracks;
  • Addressing the impact of crime and gangsterism on PRASA’s ability to operate trains and repair infrastructure; and
  • Lobbying for additional funding to protect assets, including:
    • The installation of CCTV surveillance;
      • Sixteen stations have already been fitted with CCTV cameras as part of the ISAMS (Integrated Station Access Management System). Each station has about 30 cameras; and
    • A pilot in-section camera surveillance of 2kms between Netreg and Bontheuwel.

Additionally, PRASA and Metrorail have:

• Constructed a wall between Nyanga Station and Lansdowne Bridge at a cost of R3m. Another project saw a wall constructed on both sides of the railway line near the high priority triangle at Langa-Bontheuwel-Nyanga at a total cost of R68m. These infrastructure interventions are aimed at securing the network. 
• Made 18 arrests in 8 weeks of offenders caught vandalising trains and infrastructure. These were handed to SAPS to prosecute in terms of the CMAA.
• Begun securing popular targets of vandalism such as apparatus cases and points machines in high risk areas.

The challenges in the Greater Cape Town metropolitan area in relation to public transport, especially commuter rail, remain of considerable concern to the DTPW. While commuter rail falls within the national mandate of the National Department of Transport and Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA), the DTPW and the City of Cape Town continue to engage with management structures in these organisations with the aim of finding practical solutions to current challenges.