Joburg/Durban plan needs further investigation

The South African Road Federation (SARF) cautions that the resuscitation of a proposal by the Minister of Transport, Sbu Ndebele, to establish a high-speed rail link between Johannesburg and Durban, should be subject to a thorough feasibility study before the scheme reaches the design stage. While welcoming the new initiative, SARF president, Mutshutshu Nxumalo, observes it is essential that an unbiased assessment should be conducted by experienced and competent transport engineers and economists.

“Although high-speed rail links have proven effective in other parts of the world, they have all been prone to intensive teething problems, and in most cases, considerable cost overruns.  In addition, planners on the Johannesburg/Durban link will be faced with logistical challenges which are bound to add to the cost of the project.

“Not least of these is the fact that a high-speed rail links run on a wider 1 435mm rail gauge as opposed to South Africa’s traditional narrow 1 067mm gauge. This means that not only will new rolling stock have to be purchased but it will have to be dedicated exclusively to the rail link.

“Secondly, there is the considerable difference in altitude between the two cities to consider. The link will have to traverse steep inclines in rising from sea level to just under 2 000m at Johannesburg.

“This might prove to be an achilles heel as the undulating topography will impose severe constraints on vertical and horizontal alignments, all of which will be expensive to remedy.

“And thirdly, for a rail link, either conventional, or high-speed, to attract freight business, the materials handling and storage aspects at either end of the line would have to be considerably improved,” he said.

It is not clear whether the Minister is proposing a passenger or a freight movement facility, or both, he noted.

“Should it be his intention to relieve the N3 of the excessive heavy freight traffic it now carries, SARF suggests that a dedicated truck route would be far more effective. We believe that a high-speed freight rail link with its vastly increased costs would be a much more expensive option, both to construct and to run,” he said.

An independent broad economic study conducted four years ago by Andrew Marsay, transport economics adviser, of Arup SA (Pty) Ltd, held that additional freight capacity on the Durban/Johannesburg corridor could be created far more cheaply in a road as opposed to rail mode.

He observed that for the same captital outlay of R15 billion the dedicated freight highway option could create up to four times more new freight transport capacity than if the same amount were spent on the rail mode. Moreover, relieving the existing N3 highway of heavy goods vehicles would create considerable new capacity for passenger and smaller goods vehicle traffic, not to mention the improved safety margins which would accrue from such a development.

Nxumalo says there is a global preference for road over rail freight, primarily because of the greater flexibility, speed and effectiveness that it offers, not to mention the widespread adoption of the ‘Just-in-Time’ delivery philosophy.

“Rail will need to demonstrate its capacity to contribute meaningfully to the overall transport mix before shippers buy into this mode of transport. Backing one type of transport at the expense of another won’t lead to the ultimate objective of making the entire corridor more cost-effective.

“Funds should be allocated on an even-handed basis so that road and rail complement more than compete with each other.

“We also believe that passenger traffic between the two cities needs to be realistically assessed in light of the fact that most of the world’s high-speed passenger trains serve higher population densities than would be the case in South Africa,” Nxumalo said.