Gautrain extends airport service, now serving OR Tambo 16 hours a day

If Gautrain ever needed an Ambassador, I’m up for it. Most days Gauteng’s underground gets me to work and home with the minimum of fuss. It’s so slick that you can set your watch by it. The one irritation has been the early close-off of the evening service from OR Tambo. That has been addressed with the times extended by half an hour each way – first train leaving Sandton before 5am and the last one departing the airport just after 9pm. Gautrain CEO Jack van der Merwe came through to the CNBC Africa Power Lunch studio to explain why. And shared how Gautrain is such a success that he gets flown to places like Russia and the Philippines by the World Bank – to promote Public Private Partnerships. Someone should also send him to Cape Town and Durban. – AH

ALEC HOGG: Joining us in the studio now for an update on the Gautrain is Jack van der Merwe, Chief Executive of Gautrain Management Agency. Jack, every time we talk and I boom the Gautrain (because it’s a fantastic service – you can set your watch by the time that it arrives at my local station and I love using it), I get people emailing me and saying ‘what’s wrong with you? Don’t you know that we’re all paying for this? We as taxpayers are paying for it and in fact, the money could have been spent better elsewhere. The middle class is happy, but the rest of South Africa isn’t’.   If I get it, you must get it in dollops.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Yes, but I think it’s very important. The Gautrain was initiated by the Gauteng Provincial Government as a long-term economic engine to drive the economy of the province. Firstly, it’s an economic driver and one has to look at the jobs we created and look at the investment that’s happened around the stations. We are currently busy doing an economic evaluation of what the impact was and it seems like twice the amount of money that we spent on the train is being spent around our stations, so I think there is a success.

ALEC HOGG: Just from the efficiency business of all those thousands of people that you move every day: if they were to be on the roads as well (and the time you spend in traffic is unproductive) then your economic models might show some very substantial improvements.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Yes. Look, the thing is that we have to move towards public transport. We can’t afford to build more roads and just clog up the system further. The only way that you can make public transport work is if it becomes a mode of choice. Public transport in our country is a mode of force. People only use public transport because they’re captive. What is magical about Gautrain is that 75 percent of our riders left their cars at home and they’ve come to the Gautrain.

ALEC HOGG: And ‘well done’ in that respect. Something we’ve spoken about before is the irritation when you arrive at the airport. Many people who watch this channel are businesspeople, their flights might be delayed, they get to the airport, 8:30 is the cut-off for Gautrain and you have to take a taxi or get your wife to come and fetch you etcetera, but you are going to address that.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Yes. What we’ve done is we’ve instituted two earlier trips in the morning, so our first train leaving Sandton is now at 4:50am the next one is at 5:05am, and the third one is at 5:20am, which was the original one. Coming back, we’ve instituted a train at 8:46m and then the last one at 9:04pm, so we’ve actually put in two extra services to try to cater for the people. The stations will stay open 15 minutes after the last train has departed, or has arrived.

ALEC HOGG: So can you get to Pretoria if you catch the last train?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: No. We are just running the service from O.R. Tambo to Sandton. The two earlier trains don’t stop at Marlborough, so if you want to take the early train, you have to use Sandton as your base.

ALEC HOGG: And similarly, coming home.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: And similarly, coming home.

ALEC HOGG: So you won’t be able to get to Hatfield from Sandton if you get the last train from the airport.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: No. Hatfield Stations stays open as normal now.

ALEC HOGG: So at least it’s one-step in the right direction. How does it work from your perspective, on extending hours and when the hours might be extended, to the whole network?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: We have an agreement with the concessionaire.

ALEC HOGG: Who is the concessionaire?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: The Bombela Concession Company. If they have to run extra trains, there are extra costs so we do economic analyses of what we’re doing. If it seems to be economically viable (not immediately, but in the next few years), we will institute another service.

ALEC HOGG: How many people is this going to affect?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Well, we have 5,500 people per day, using the airport train. We have 62,000 people per day using the total service.

ALEC HOGG: But how many planes arrive after 8:00pm?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Look, there are actually three or four domestic flights that come in, but then there’s always this thing – you fly to Cape Town and the flight’s delayed coming back, so we hope to catch four to five extra flights coming in, in the evenings and four to five flights leaving earlier in the morning.

ALEC HOGG: How many people who fly into O.R. Tambo are now using Gautrain rather than their own cars? Have you had any analysis on that?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: No, we haven’t done that yet.

ALEC HOGG: So you have 5,500 people who are using Gautrain, who otherwise would probably have their cars parked at the airport.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Yes, and they would be clogging up the system: the R21 and the R24 carry a heavy load. The R24 is one of the roads in Gauteng that has counter-flow and flow of about the same magnitude, so this road is really running at capacity.

ALEC HOGG: Jack, it is one of the big success stories of this province – of South Africa -, the Gautrain. Are you getting people from abroad coming to have a look, analyse, and perhaps seeing how they can implement it in their countries?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: When I started off, I used to go overseas and ask the people ‘what would you do differently’ , what lessons are to be learned, and I always hoped they would come to South Africa. Now we have about two delegations per month coming to us, asking ‘what have you done? How have you run the PPP? How do you do this very complex document’, so the World Bank is now sending me all over the world to go and talk on PPP’s – these mega projects. They’ve sent me to Russia and I’ve gone to the Philippines, so it is a bit of counter-flow of knowledge and experience.

ALEC HOGG: Are you going to Durban and Cape Town?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Well, if they invite me…

ALEC HOGG: What about those two cities? You would have thought a great city needs an underground. Johannesburg has one.

JACK VAN DER MERWE: I think the two cities that are ripe for developing something similar are Durban and Cape Town. Cape Town has now created the Transport Authority, which is looking at everything holistically. That’s the first step of actually doing integrated transport planning for a very large urban area. I don’t think it would be farfetched to think that something like this would be happening there in the not too distant future.

ALEC HOGG: How long is ‘the not too distant future’? Let’s just say that the Cape Government decided today ‘we are going to put a Gautrain into the Western Cape. How long would it take from the date of decision to the first train?

JACK VAN DER MERWE: Internationally, these projects take 14 years on average, from somebody dreaming the idea until the mayor cuts the ribbon. I think you could most probably do it in ten years. We’ve now done an integrated transport master plan for Gauteng and because of that, we will now extend the Gautrain service so within the next two weeks, we’ll announce the new consortium – that we’re going to start with the design. We then hope to run the service from the east of Pretoria (from Mamelodi), running 45 degrees down past Midrand and Randburg, through to the West of Johannesburg, to Maleni and Soweto. We hope to be planning and finishing that within the next two to three years, and then if possible, start building.

ALEC HOGG: Jack van der Merwe, it just shows that visionaries are required in every single aspect of life today. We enjoy the Gautrain, but if it weren’t for the visionaries of those who did the discussions 10/15 years ago, it just would never have happened. Come on, Cape Town and Durban – your turn next. That was Jack van der Merwe, the Chief Executive of Gautrain Management Agency.

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