Issued by: KC Communications
PRESS RELEASE MINISTER OPENS INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT CONFERENCE
The SA Minister of Transport, Mr Mac Maharaj, opened the first working session of Codatu VIII yesterday at Cape Town's Good Hope Centre. This international conference will focus on urban transport issues with the aim of providing solutions to current challenges.
Mr Maharaj chaired a round table discussion which focused on key issues in urban transport and threw the floor open for debate among the 520 odd delegates.
The Minister also outlined the developments in the Moving South Africa transport strategy, spearheaded by the Department of Transport, which addresses planning for the next 20 years.
"Moving South Africa broke new ground because it provided, for the first time, a data-driven analysis of all modes of transport - including passenger and freight sectors in this country," said Mr Maharaj in his speech to the 520 international delegates.
"The most radical aspect of Moving South Africa is that for the first time we systematically looked at transport in this country form the standpoint of its customers and clearly demarcated the performance gaps. We are going to have to make some hard choices if we want an efficient and effective transport system where sustainability, capacity, competition and safety are key components."
The urban passenger transport strategy developed for Moving South Africa has three main components, high volume corridors, sustainable operations and improved efficiency.
The concentration of passenger volumes along corridors is imperative to drive down national transport system costs as volume concentration increases capacity utilisation and lowers unit costs.
"The existing structure of our cities does not allow for the creation of a "compact city" approach that would, in terms of much of the transport literature, reduce costs," continued Maharaj.
"Designated corridors would allow us to serve areas outside of the area immediately surrounding the city, while still attaining volume concentration. Thereby higher levels of service are encouraged through focus and concentration of limited financial resources.
"Secondly, the critical lack of sustainable passenger transport operations must be turned around through deploying appropriate modes in appropriate places."
Levels of utilisation of public transport assets are low, resulting in high fixed costs to the system. Within a corridor vision, these costs can be brought down while utilisation levels are driven up, bringing about efficiency to the whole system.
Modal economies of service mixes will be optimised through infrastructure investment to support the corridors and the selection of the optimal mode to serve the corridor. While differentiated services and choices will be encouraged, subsidisation will only be available for the optimal mode.
Firm level performance will be improved through competitive tendering to the private sector with incentives for productivity innovation, effective regulation of all modes and improved sustainability through capital investment.
While the strategy will substantially improve system performance, there are difficult obstacles that we will have to overcome as we continue to unwind the legacy of our past.
We are inspired by the vision of Moving South Africa as the strategy outlines the investment we must make now to ensure that we do not face a crisis in the future.