Passenger train services in South Africa could collapse within the next two years as Metrorail's assets are falling apart. Lucky Montana, chief executive of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), said Metrorail's assets are old and there is little support from government to prevent the service destroying itself.
Prasa is severely underfunded and the services provided are suffering, which means commuters will pay the price.
Department of Transport spokesperson Sam Monareng said government has allocated R18bn to passenger train services in the medium-term expenditure framework.
He pointed out that the national transport budget has trebled over the past five years.
Montana said the capital has been provided to upgrade and maintain the existing assets and systems for another couple of years (including the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament), rather than to allow Prasa to replace its assets.
Passenger train services, reckoned Montana, are limping along day by day with a high probability of systems collapsing during peak times because of the unreliability of the old assets and the deficient signalling system.
Furthermore, up to 30% of the existing coaches need to be taken out of service within the next 36 months.
Should an order for new coaches not be placed within the next year, passenger train services would again find themselves teetering on the knife-edge they experienced three years ago when waiting periods for new wagons were so long. New coaches cost almost R9m each, and over the next 10 years Metrorail needs 560 to 600 of these.
A new signalling system will require additional investment of up to R6.5bn.
Prasa is struggling to keep its head above water financially, yet in the past five years has not increased train-ticket prices. It could not do so because its service was so bad, said Montana. Earlier this year, however, the company said that it wanted to increase prices by 10%.