Moving from road fright to rail in 5 years will take a ‘miracle’, says Road Freight Association

The Road Freight Association (RFA) believes it will take a miracle for most road freight to be moved to rail within the next five years.

It was reacting to comments by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula that the department of transport was working with the department of public enterprises to get trucks off the road, by moving most freight onto rail.

Mbalula’s comments follow a horrific fatal accident between a truck and a bakkie near Pongola, KwaZulu-Natal, last week.

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The collision claimed at least 20 lives, including 18 primary schoolchildren. RFA chief executive Gavin Kelly said there was nothing new in Mbalula’s comments about the movement of freight from road to rail other than the five-year target – and it has been part of the department of transport’s policies and strategies for years.

“These discussions have been on the table but the reality is nothing has come of those discussions and in the past five years, we have seen whatever infrastructure we actually had destroyed.”

“How [Mbalula] is going to get anything right in five years – bar a miracle – is beyond me.” Kelly said Mbalula’s comments have been “driven by an accident” and not by “the past three decades of discussion and the collapse of logistics” in SA.

He questioned who will fund the movement of “most” road freight to rail. “I don’t think it’s achievable. They are not even moving key sets of cargo like coal, ore or containers by rail so I don’t see it happening at all,” said Kelly.

“The reality is this – and it isn’t just freight but in terms of moving people – that rail has failed us or we have failed rail.

We have not looked after it for whatever reason and where it now needs to play its role, it cannot because there is just so much decay.”

He said this was not going to be revitalising the rail network, it was going to be a total rebuild in many cases.

“There are some lines that were built in the 1950s and 1960s that have not been looked after and upgraded. It’s a mammoth task,” Kelly said.

He added that efficiency, reliability, security and accessibility are not traits or terms commonly associated with rail services in SA. However, rail has to play its part in the movement of both passengers and freight.

Kelly referred to the lines of trucks travelling to the various ports because the rail system is either unserviceable or there are problems at the ports, stressing that this cannot continue.

“We call on [Mbalula] to propose and show us this rail plan, because it’s going to be a joint effort of all the modes involved – not just rail.”

“And the customer will decide which mode to use and rail has to become efficient, reliable, secure and accessible, otherwise we are going to throw good money after bad,” Kelly said.

“That really raises the question as to who is going to repair or fix the rail system. “Is it going to be the taxpayer or is it going to be the road freight industry that will now be taxed and have extra levies to pay and incentivise freight moving from road to rail?

“This is a very important concept that needs to be discussed very carefully before we destroy what is left of the supply of logistics and transport chains that we have in this country,” he said.

Mbalula this month stressed the urgent national importance of restoring and modernising the country’s rail infrastructure.

This article first appeared on Moneyweb, and was republished with permission. Read the original article here