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Giving opportunities to more South Africans to improve their lives depends to a significant degree on our transport system being able move people and goods around the country quickly and safely. Although South Africa has a well developed road network, it is in the process of deteriorating, particularly in the rural areas. Our rail network is also extensive, but poor management of this sector means there are fewer and fewer trains. Taxis are cheap, but unsafe and uncontrolled. Thus individual life chances and national goals are both constrained.

The DA will work to address these constraints and create a seamless, well managed and affordable transport network. The DA's vision is for a seamless transport system which is safe and affordable and which guarantees the reliable and cost-effective movement of people and goods across the country and across our borders. This would need the consolidation of many services which are currently housed in a number of different ministries.

The DA proposes development in the following sectors:

1. Road Infrastructure & Management:

According to the AA in November 2008, 60% of South African National Roads were in poor or very poor condition compared to about 22% in 1998. South Africa's road network is deteriorating because of inadequate funding and rising costs of construction and maintenance. The DA will:

Establish a dedicated Road Maintenance Fund, sourced primarily from the fuel levy, which will enable South Africa to eliminate the R120bn maintenance backlog over six years.
Ensure that if toll road concessions are to be considered, a percentage of their profits must go towards community development or a pool for subsidising rural transport. Toll roads take opportunities away from the poor.
Overloading by heavy duty vehicles is destroying our roads. The DA will introduce mobile weighbridges and implement stringent measures to catch and severely punish offenders. We will also introduce legislation to enforce the transport of certain categories of goods by rail.

2. Road Safety & the Environment:

South Africa's unacceptably high accident rate costs the economy dearly. A culture of safe driving must be entrenched through education, zero tolerance for dangerous driving and higher driver testing and enforcement standards. The DA will:

Recruit, train and accredit at least 2000 traffic officers at all levels of government to international norms and standards within 18 months and in so doing ensure optimum visible policing on all our roads.
Introduce a massive safety drive levelled at motorists and scholars alike in order to reduce our accident rate by 25% per annum. We will be looking at taking the lead on this in the Western Cape government.

3. Public Transport:

Our cities and towns are increasingly congested as a direct result of the lack of efficient and safe public transport. Taxis, which transport 60% of commuters in the country, are seen to be unsafe and passengers often become the victims of rivalry and internal feuding. Buses on the other hand, exist only in the larger cities and are often unreliable and in short supply. Railway services are still plagued by delays, crime and safety problems.

The DA will introduce a state subsidy through a single, multi-use ticket applicable to all certified public transport users to make transport more accessible to everyone. This would be a subsidy paid to the commuter, not the operator.

The direct operation of transport services must largely be left to private entrepreneurs to manage in accordance with business principles, to ensure maximum effectiveness. But it is critical, if the system is to work effectively, that the government provide a properly thought out framework within which they can operate. It is not always cost-effective, for example, for different forms of public transport to compete against each other, and this framework should ensure that different transport modes work together harmoniously.

The DA believes that the IRT and BRT systems which are being implemented across the country are essential to modernizing our transport and infrastructure systems. Capital costs for reinforcement of dedicated lanes and the purchase of buses have become increasingly prohibitive and the DA will be looking at a range of other options. We need to urgently find ways to solve the financial crises that are facing some of them. Their effectiveness must also not be compromised by using positions in the management structure as bribes for unqualified taxi bosses.

4. Rail Infrastructure

Signal failures and cable theft are prevalent across the rail network. The system needs modernizing and exposed cables in vulnerable areas must be placed underground. To improve this situation, the DA will:

· Embark on an accelerated refurbishment and modernisation programme involving all the private sector coachbuilders. All new coach acquisitions must be supplied in kit form to enable assembly and material beneficiation to be optimised locally.
· Expand the recently introduced Railway Police Service to curb crime and vandalism on trains, at bus stations, taxi ranks and railway stations in a people friendly way.

5. Aviation and Airports

The key to success in air transport is healthy private sector competition, with the State being involved in regulating, supporting and managing aspects such as safety, licensing, noise control and the environment. SAA and SAX hold a monopoly on international and domestic routes and they are a continued burden on State funding.
The DA believes:
· SAA, SAX and Mango should not dictate the size of the market and other players should be allowed to fill whatever gaps that exist due to SAA lack of capacity.
· SAA should be privatized, providing the right buyer can be found. In the meantime, opportunity exists for SAA to lease out or concession some of its fleet and routes to private airline companies.
· Air services to and from South Africa should be liberalized and charter flights encouraged to satisfy peak demands within an ‘open skies' policy.
· If we are serious about public transport we need to make sure that ACSA provides adequate facilities for coaches and shuttle services.

6. Ports

In order to encourage lower costs and a higher level of service, port operations must be privatised, leased or concessioned.

The DA believes that, with a small amount of capital expenditure, existing dry docks and ship building yards could be resuscitated at some of our ports to re-establish them as an affordable destination for repairs and construction. In Table Bay a new dry dock will have to be built to handle bigger ships - in particular those servicing the West African petroleum industry. This opportunity will not only create jobs but also generate foreign earnings.

Paramount to port efficiency is improving vessel turnaround and relieving container congestion. This requires the correct and most suitable use of cranes for the type of cargo being handled. In this regard the DA will review all current cranes in use at our harbours to ensure their appropriateness and step up training in their use where applicable.

The DA will investigate the establishment of niche ports specializing in various commodities depending on their locality, including, for example, coal, vehicles, fruit and gas (we propose a dedicated gas terminal/port on the West Coast).