State-owned Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) would embark on a three-month intervention programme, following large numbers of complaints and protest related to poor service delivery.

CEO Lucky Montana said at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday that a 12-month investigation showed a lack of effective management and supervision was at the heart of Prasa’s poor service delivery.

Consequently, the agency decided it would cut about 30% of its middle management and supervisors, to get rid of what Montana referred to as ‘cheque takers’. This constitutes a cut of about 200 people, out of about 500 managers working for the company.

Montana said that a lack of proper supervision, accountability and scheduling had led to management and drivers not pitching up for work, and stations being run inefficiently.

He added that corporate management would not be safe, and needed to perform to justify their positions. “We want better, fewer, but better.”

Consumers face daily delays and service interruptions on the Prasa system. The Transport Department recently announced that the agency would embark on a R97-billion recapitalisation programme, which would enable Prasa to procure new rolling stock.

The probability of one of Prasa’s coaches failing occurs once every 22 days, compared with the international standard where coaches were only expected to fail once every two years.

However, Montana said that even though Prasa had a fleet of trains with an average age of about 40-years plus, there was still a lot of work that needed to be done to improve efficiencies within the current system before the first new trains would be rolled out in 2014/15.

“At the moment, we are not using our depots efficiently and this is why we need management with the right tools and skills, sufficient and correct equipment and the correct strategies to improve performance.”

The 90-day intervention, or action plan, would further see the agency improve its maintenance system and incorporate a comprehensive fault-reporting regime.

Prasa had been struggling with depleted spare and component stock levels, leading to long delays and a reduction of available trains on the system. “Where it should be taking us an average of 40 minutes to fix a problem, it now takes us an average of two hours,” said Montana.

Prasa Rail CEO Mosenngwa Mofi said that stock levels would be replenished and that quick response teams would be established to ensure the rapid recovery of broken down rolling stock.

Further, each driver would be compelled to fill in a fault-reporting log that would cord any problems on the train, which would then be taken care of by special maintenance teams in the evening. Maintenance would be shifted to evening times and on weekends as far as possible.

Prasa had diversified and strengthened its maintenance suppliers and now have contracts with seven companies, instead of being reliant only on Transnet Rail Engineering for maintenance. The two parties had been involved in a long-time dispute over operating and maintenance costs relating to the Shosholoza Meyl passenger fleet, which had only been settled at the end of last year.

Montana noted that Prasa would also strengthen its internal maintenance and repair capabilities.

In addition, the agency would decentralise its operations to reduce the amount of empty trains having to first commute from Johannesburg to other outside stations in the mornings. “We will be looking to up our capacity to host these trains at the stations during the evenings, and in fact, at certain stations we already have some capacity that is not being used.

“We need to start doing the basics right,” said Montana.

RECAPITALISATION PROGRAMME

Meanwhile, Prasa said that the market engagement process with rolling stock manufacturers and financiers were concluded last week and proved successful.

Prasa is busy with a feasibility study for its new rolling stock, which would be completed in June and submitted to Cabinet thereafter.

“There is no going back on this recapitalisation programme, in fact we are already about a year to two years late in finalising the process.

“Every year it becomes more expensive to maintain our old fleet, and I think the most time we can buy is about a year, through improving the effectiveness of our maintenance system, but we definitely need the first new trains by 2014/15,” said Montana.