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The Ministerial War Room on the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa is off to a good start. The War Room, which was launched by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula on the 8th of August 2019, officially began operating on the 12th of August 2019.

Newly appointed Director General at the Department of Transport, Alec Moemi, yesterday met with those deployed to the War Room and reiterated the Minister’s marching orders. A slight improvement in Metrorail’s performance has already been seen.

Yesterday afternoon, 78% of scheduled train trips ran, with 53% of them running on time. This morning, those figures rose to 86% of scheduled train trips running and 73% of them running on time. The War Room also detected the burning of two train carriages in Cape Town. Thanks to its swift action, the matter was attended to, the scene was cleared and services were recovered within 4 hours.

“The War Room is supported by a Technical Task Team primarily made up of experts with in-depth knowledge and experience in rail operations, signaling, rolling stock,security,business process, engineering and modeling. The job of this War Room is to monitor Metrorail’s operations daily and ensure the implementation of turnaround strategies”, said Transport Ministry Spokesperson Ayanda Allie Paine.

The War Room has three focus areas: service recovery, safety management and accelerated implementation of the modernization programme.
The Minister’s intervention will continue until the end of the 2019/20 financial year, with defined targets expected to be realized by the 31st of December 2019 and sustained beyond this date.
 

Issued by the Ministry of Transport