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Gone are the days when a rail link was simply a question of laying tracks from A to BThe Project Manager spoke to Jack van der Merwe, chief executive officer of the Gautrain Management Agency.
TPM: The Gautrain project began as a vision to get commuters from Johannesburg to Pretoria and from Oliver Tambo airport to the Johannesburg or Pretoria CBDs fast and in comfort. To what extent have projects such as the 2010 World Cup or Gauteng highway improvement tweaked that original vision?
JvdM: The project began with an underpinning goal of contributing to the long-term economic sustainability of Gauteng. It had four cornerstone goals:
The first of these was that it had to contribute to skills development and economic growth in the area.
Secondly, it had to take into consideration the effective use of land – it had to contribute toward a strengthening of the central business districts through which it runs as well as changing the land use around its stations.
It also had to change the perceptions around the use of public transport. In South Africa today, there is a horizontal transformation when it comes to the home/work transport scenario i.e. once a commuter can afford to buy a car, he/she emigrates from the public transport sphere, and adds to the stress on an already overstretched road network.
The Gautrain seeks to change this to a vertical view, where the objective is not to create a perception of the Gautrain as a replacement for one’s vehicle, but rather as a complement to one’s other form of transport: use the Gautrain for the home-work trip and the car for pleasure.
Finally, the project was planned with a focus on poverty alleviation, with the emphasis on rural poverty.
These were robust goals, and the project has survived three major power shifts in the country’s government; many other projects have not. It can be said that these shifts are more fundamental and more significant than those in many European administrations.
There also has been a major change of emphasis on “green” issues in South Africa over the past 10 years, and the Gautrain planned for these up front.
Where environmentally sensitive flora or fauna were going to be disrupted along its route, “nurseries” have been established and the species have been given temporary homes and will be reintroduced to their native habitat when the project is completed.
But essentially, the Gautrain project was established with a view to acquiring sufficient ridership to ensure its sustainability. It was, and still is, a public-private partnership (PPP).
This has been a project with its fair share of political and social upheavals – but from an engineering perspective, what were the major civil, mechanical and electrical engineering challenges that had to be met and overcome?
In the 1970s, the area that was then known as the PWV (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging) covered an area of 18 000km2, and had its own transport model. The model was recalibrated in 1985 and again in 1992, when it was included in the public transport model.
When the Gautrain was contemplated, a “stated preference” model was included, and these preferences were tested in 2006 and again in 2009.
When it was first contemplated, the cost of car travel, as opposed to train travel, was fairly even. By the time of the 2009 test, however, things had changed dramatically and an environmental footprint factor had come into the picture.
When those studies were done, a cost of 40c/km was used; the perceived cost of the Gautrain was 55c/km. That cost has since escalated to 80c to R1.00/km, with an additional 50c/km once the toll roads are in operation.
It is worth noting that cars in Gauteng pump 15 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
With this background, and the stated objectives of the project, the engineering challenges have to be seen as part of a total solution i.e. to solve unlimited demands with limited resources.
If one looks at the freeway from Sandton to Johannesburg, there are 17 bridges over the freeway, and each is unique. The Gautrain utilises 205 bridges and (with the exception of those at John Vorster Avenue and Jean Avenue) only two designs (viaduct and M-Beam) have been used.
This has meant that all the bridge components could be manufactured under strictly controlled conditions, off site and moved on site as and when required.
The methods of construction were also streamlined as the project progressed, with the result that the manufacturing process was reduced from 10 days to four.
The use of a pressure-balanced tunnel building machine (the tunnelling was done below the water table) was also a first for Africa, and a 15-kilometre tunnel under the heart of Johannesburg’s financial district was completed without any disruption to commercial activities.
One of the major challenges from a civil engineering perspective was the work on dolomitic areas. The solutions here were very costly, but the knowledge gained was invaluable. The project management took the view that tunnelling through dolomite was simply too risky, so much money and effort went into ensuring that the peers and pillars for the elevation of the Gautrain over those areas were safe.
From an electrical perspective, the Gautrain uses a much higher voltage (25 000-volt alternating current as opposed to 3 000-volt direct current) than has been used to date, and all the transference of power, including the emergency stopping on the disc brakes, takes place in the Bogeys. This is a quantum leap for rolling stock in South Africa.
Where the train draws power when it is travelling uphill, it generates power when travelling downhill.
In the initial stages of the project, it was suggested to Eskom that this power could be placed back into the grid rather than dissipating it via some form of heat transference. At the time, Eskom was concerned that the power returned to the grid might not be ‘clean’ enough.
Since the electricity crisis, however, Eskom has reviewed the situation and the surplus power generated by the Gautrain could be used. This would amount to an approximate 20% saving on power usage.
But perhaps the most significant aspect of the Gautrain project, from a general engineering point of view, is the fact that some 90 000 job opportunities have been created, and the attendant skills transfer has been enormous.
On any given day, the project employs about 10 000 people on site. The salary bill for these people consumes a hefty proportion of the project’s budget of R30 million per day.
How much have the solutions to these challenges benefited engineering in South Africa? Would they assist in implementing similar systems elsewhere?
In any PPP anywhere in the world, there are three main elements: technical, financial and legal.
In the South African context, there is a fourth, equally important element: that of socio-economic development.
In this instance, the PPP is based on a design, manufacture, implement and maintain model. Thus, the contractors not only have an interest in ensuring that the design and manufacture implement phases go well (as they will have to make good any oversights), they also want to ensure that the maintenance side of things goes well so that the contracts remain in place.
In every possible way, local products have been used during the project and local skills have been employed. Where skills have been required, they have been developed locally via the many sector education and training authority accredited training courses that have emerged as a result of these projects.
Eighty to 90% of the work on the project has been carried out by South African engineering companies.
Studies over the past 30 years have shown that most projects overrun costs by 30% and have a time overrun of 27%.
Gautrain has been run as a PPP, which spreads the risk equally among the partners and where the lessons of previous projects worldwide and the attendant best practice have been applied. Where all parties are equally at risk, they have ensured that time and costs are managed very carefully.
We are building 24 train sets, which equates to huge skills transfer. We created about 90 000 job opportunities concessionaire, about on average 10 000 people working on site every day. We spend R3m per hour, and R30m per day.
The Gautrain model can serve as a template for the introduction of this type of transport solution to other South African cities, be it on a smaller or larger scale – the blueprint is available.
Does Gauteng need a Gautrain?
Urbanisation is a fact. In Europe, the creation of megacities has enhanced the economic strength of the countries. The cities have created jobs and have drawn people from the country to them. The development of the cities has kept pace with the influx of people.
In Africa, however, the opposite is the case. In Lagos, for example, the population exploded from two million to 10 million people in a very short time.
The infrastructural development of the cities has lagged behind and this has led to massive slum development with its attendant squalor. This has been a drain on the resources of the cities and the country as a whole, rather than the other way around.
In order to cope with the demand for employment – no one wants to live in an informal settlement – the cities need a backbone, a method of getting people from their living area to the place of employment. The best solution to this is a heavy rail transport system.
Even before Gautrain has become fully functional, the economic effects are being felt. Hotels have been built; the new Raddison Gautrain Hotel is one such example, another is the Old Mutual development in Midrand, where 250 000m2 are being built for retail, office and residential use – and the station is right in the middle of it.
Gautrain learnt from the mistakes of the London Docklands which grossly underestimated the effect that quick, safe and dependable transport would have on the area. Gautrain has anticipated this and the early signs are that this was a wise decision.
Already, the project is a bigger economic catalyst than first anticipated.
So, yes, Gauteng needs the Gautrain as much as the Gautrain needs Gauteng.
Interview by John Doolan
