*Gautrain* Rapid Rail Link

[Econ77]

Damn this thing is expensive, this now over and above the income it generates. It would never have been profitable, but a loss of nearly a billion per year?

About 12 million Gauteng residents are paying more than R70-million a month to keep the Gautrain on its tracks.

The province's treasury now looks set to give the transport department an additional R1.2-billion cash injection to enable it to support its agencies until the end of March. The department will, from this amount, allocate R861-million to the Gautrain in what is called a "patronage fee".

On Tuesday next week, finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe is expected to announce this and other cash injections for other departments when he tables the provincial budget.

The multimillion-rand allocation comes after Nkomfe first tabled a draft report on the Provincial Adjustment Appropriation Bill, enabling the provincial treasury to take money from the province's revenue account and streamline it to departmental expenditure budgets to address shortfalls.

Last year, Neil Campbell, the DA's provincial spokesman on transport, called for the Gautrain contract to be made public, adding that reports hinted at the time that taxpayers would pay R700-million a year to subsidise its operational costs.

Yesterday, John Mashele, Gauteng treasury's deputy director-general for sustainable resource management, denied the R861-million was a subsidy.

"Gautrain's allocation was reduced when Gauteng treasury tabled the main budget [last year]. This was because discussions on some aspects of their spending plans had not been finalised. This necessitated treasury to allocate what was reduced through the adjustment process," he said.

Mashele said when the R27-billion Gautrain project was signed off by the Cabinet in 2006, a patronage fee to assist in covering "operating, maintenance and the private sector portion of the capital costs" was part of the deal.

The Gautrain, which started operating in June 2010, was billed as one of the most reliable modes of public transport in Gauteng. Despite this, questions were asked on whether the train would meet its target of 100000 passenger trips a day.

Gautrain spokesman Barbara Jensen said on average the train recorded between 45000 and 47000 passenger trips every weekday, and a further 18000 to 20000 passenger trips on its buses.

"The system is in very early stages of operation and is in what is known as the 'ramp-up' period.

"It's simply too early to give any accurate estimates of ridership or the patronage guarantee."

Jensen said the Gautrain Management Company, under the leadership of CEO Jack van der Merwe, was presently "exploring options" of expanding the project by adding stations at Samrand in Midrand and Modderfontein, east of Johannesburg.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/...-gautrain-bill

[Inertia]

Interesting discussion. Once again the DA nails it IMO, tough to argue against Ollis's points

[nomnolence]

Originally Posted by Inertia

Interesting discussion. Once again the DA nails it IMO, tough to argue against Ollis's points

I still don't get why the patronage guarantee is structured to directly subsidise the operator rather than the commuter. Surely making ticket prices cheaper (i.e. putting at least a portion of the R900m into subsidising ticket costs) may push rider-ship up to sustainable level? Has anybody actually done a price elasticity study?

[Inertia]

Originally Posted by nomnolence

I still don't get why the patronage guarantee is structured to directly subsidise the operator rather than the commuter. Surely making ticket prices cheaper (i.e. putting at least a portion of the R900m into subsidising ticket costs) may push rider-ship up to sustainable level? Has anybody actually done a price elasticity study?

Unfortunately this is a commercial operation.

Once the novelty of travelling to JHB <> PTA and the Airport runs out, I must admit I find the Gautrain to be pretty inflexible. The fact that it is such an isolated operation with absolutely no official connectivity with other transport operations is an absolute disgrace. The transport department in Gauteng is so clueless it's scary. The infrastructure is sitting there, has been sitting there for years but there is such little knowledge/capacity/understanding/motivation to link it all together that they all operate as independent entities. It blows my mind that Rea Vaya hasn't been officially integrated, with combined ticketing.

[RODDAS]

Gautrain 2012 ridership up 60%, placing ‘severe strain’ on capacity

By: Irma Venter
9th April 2013

Average weekday ridership on the Gautrain in March has jumped by 60% compared with the same month last year, says Bombela spokesperson Kelebogile Machaka.

Bombela is responsible for operating the Gautrain system on behalf of the Gautrain government.

Weekday Gautrain ridership during March increased to about 48 000 passengers, up by about 18 000 on March 2012.

Weekend ridership has stabilised at a relatively consistent level of 14 000 to 16 000 passengers a day, notes Machaka.

However, it is not all good news for the train system, now almost three years old.

“The increase in passenger demand has placed severe strain on the train system during peak periods, with demand already approaching levels only predicted in year ten of the concession period,” says Machaka.

From an operational perspective, this increased demand is further complicated by the a-symmetrical ridership pattern apparent on the system.

The morning peak from Tshwane to Johannesburg is “extremely busy”, while the reverse direction is much less so.

This pattern reverses in the afternoon, adds Machaka. The off-peak period in the middle of the day also exhibits relatively low demand.

“Several additional train-sets have already been introduced during peak times to accommodate the demand, but train availability, as well as system constraints – signalilng systems and track layouts – will preclude much more advantage from this strategy.”

Fare incentives are being considered as a mechanism to address capacity constraints.

It is also, for example, possible to increase train frequency over the longer term.

As for the Gautrain’s buses, viewed by some critics as empty for the most part, Machaka says average weekday ridership during March increased to about 19 000 passengers, which is up 90% compared with last year.

A significant and sustained step-increase in bus ridership has been noted since January, following a Christmas holiday promotion, says Machaka.

From December 15, 2012 to January 31, 2013, bus passengers were charged only R1 a trip on the Gautrain’s bus services.

Bus services have also recently been optimised, with several new routes added. Among these are a park-and-ride route between Emperors Palace and Rhodesfield station, which operates over weekends as well, and another between Killarney Mall and Rosebank station.

These new routes are designed to reduce pressure on the parking facilities at these two stations.

Another new route now operates from Pretoria station to Unisa’s campus, as well as the University of Pretoria’s Groenkloof campus.

Machaka says 93% of Gautrain bus passengers also use the trains and around 30% of train passengers also use the Gautrain buses.

“Buses are, thus, clearly very important feeders to the train system.”

Average weekday parking entries at Gautrain stations increased to about 8 000 cars during March, which is a 30% increase on March last year.

However, there are only around 10 000 available bays across the system.

Parking facilities at Pretoria, Centurion, Midrand, and Rhodesfield stations are heavily in demand and several measures are being considered to increase capacity, says Machaka.

“These may include the procurement of additional land for the provision of supplementary parking bays, as well as the roll-out of park-and-ride destinations, which can be served by the Gautrain bus service. It is also anticipated that recent optimisation of the bus routes will enable more passengers to use the bus service in preference to their cars.”

Machaka also notes that the average monthly train punctuality over the year to end January 2013 has been 98.6%, compared with the contractual target of 90%.

Punctuality is defined as a train arriving or departing within three minutes of its scheduled time.

The worst month during the period was October 2012, at 97.13%, when a lightning strike knocked out the signalling system near Marlboro station, resulting in widespread delays until the equipment could be replaced.

“Lightning has continued to affect operations on several occasions, but the Bombela Maintenance Company has implemented enhanced protection in six key locations,” says Machaka.

“While electronic systems can never be fully immune to lightning strikes and surges, the punctuality improvements since October suggest that the enhanced protection is having some positive effect during the Highveld storm season.”

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/gautrain-2012-ridership-up-60-placing-severe-strain-on-capacity-2013-04-09

[dysan1]

Originally Posted by Inertia

Unfortunately this is a commercial operation.

Once the novelty of travelling to JHB <> PTA and the Airport runs out, I must admit I find the Gautrain to be pretty inflexible. The fact that it is such an isolated operation with absolutely no official connectivity with other transport operations is an absolute disgrace. The transport department in Gauteng is so clueless it's scary. The infrastructure is sitting there, has been sitting there for years but there is such little knowledge/capacity/understanding/motivation to link it all together that they all operate as independent entities. It blows my mind that Rea Vaya hasn't been officially integrated, with combined ticketing.

Agree, is there no form of integration of systems planned?

Metrorail/Rea Vaya/Gautrain should all link seemlessly. Heck the taxis should be linked in too. Other cities are doing that, so surely it is planned for the near future

[Inertia]

Originally Posted by dysan1

Agree, is there no form of integration of systems planned?

Metrorail/Rea Vaya/Gautrain should all link seemlessly. Heck the taxis should be linked in too. Other cities are doing that, so surely it is planned for the near future

There was so much talk before the Gautrain was opened about how the taxi rank in Sandton was going to be integrated into the station with its own underground section, own amenities, dedicated lanes, etc. This has never happened and the taxis have just turned the entrance to the public library into a stinking rubbish dump.

I don't blame Bombela as they actually run the Gautrain system fantastically in the constraints of their contracts. It is, no shit, the Gauteng and national government who have completely fucked up everything the Gautrain could have been up till now

[dysan1]

I would include the city council too. They should have an integrated transport plan

[Econ77]

So here's a question: Ridership jumped 60%, with the system capacity now under severe strain. Yet, they are nowhere near break-even point? How on earth did they predict they would turn profitable if they can't even handle the passengers required for breaking even?

[ZoalBucket]

I think the system in its current format cant really handle ridership.
Gautrain is ultimately designed for an increase in the number on carriages per train as well as an increase in the frequency that the trains are running. That should help put an ease on the system
With these changes the system should be able to handle the increased ridership

[Econ77]

True, do we know the upward limit of the interval they can manage? If i remember correctly they where going to try and reduce it to 9 minutes by 2018? Even that would only increase capacity by max 33%
So can we then assume the constraint is the 24 train sets they have? For them to up capacity, they need more trains. As far as I know, there has been no mention of them trying to get more from Bombardier? The lead time on that would probably be years, by which time tolls would be in, and the system (as well as their profits) would be severely hampered by lack of capacity.

[Inertia]

The capacity constraints seem like a huge oversight from their side. The expected break-even ridership was to be over 100 000 passenger trips a day. This is defined as actual one way passenger trips. So a person travelling to Midrand from PTA is one trip. One of the reasons Gautrain says that their riderships are so much lower is due to the fact that these projections included an extra station on the line (Zonkisizwe development) which has never happened.

I don't see how this could possibly increase ridership to over 100 000 a day, as currently the average ridership per station is roughly 4800 trips per station per day. So adding an extra station should increase ridership by +- this amount. Which gets us to 52 800, maybe even 60 000 if we are being optimistic. While this is not a cause for concern in itself, as annual growth could eventually push this to over 100 000, what really worries me is that the system is reaching, or has already reached its current capacity at 48 000 passengers a day.

Train frequency cannot be increased much more than 10 minutes without the whole signalling system being replaced, a major job. Also they currently run 8 car train sets in very busy times, and as far as I'm aware stations are long enough to handle 10 car trains, not sure if it's more. So basically there's no quick fix in sight, and Gautrain haven't reached half their projected daily ridership.

It's clear that the projections were based on ridership being much more evenly spread during the day, but it is very surprising that peak hours were so drastically under estimated. This is going to be a big problem and I really don't know what short term solutions are available to Bombela and the government

[ZoalBucket]

Originally Posted by Inertia

It's clear that the projections were based on ridership being much more evenly spread during the day, but it is very surprising that peak hours were so drastically under estimated. This is going to be a big problem and I really don't know what short term solutions are available to Bombela and the government

Yes, on that point I agree completely. There were some major oversights on their behalf

[waltjie]

Originally Posted by Inertia

what short term solutions are available to Bombela and the government

It's called tax-payers' money.

[Econ77]

a confirmation of above mentioned concerns:
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-s...ession-company

Note specifically:

. Obviously we’ve already on several different occasions put additional trains into the system, we can only do that I think once or twice more and then we will have run out of rolling stock capacity during peak periods. Also we’re beginning to run into situations where we can’t run trains at closer frequencies because of constraints on the signaling system and, of course, as you go further south in the system we’ve got a single tunnel between Sandton, Rosebank and Park Station and all of those trains have to pass each other at Rosebank Station and, of course, the trip duration in between means that you can only run trains at given frequencies.

[Hennie]

The last option will be to take out seats in order to increase capacity. Most metros run that way anyway.

On some European systems they run trains every 90 seconds in peak. With single track that is not an option. As they say: do it right first time.

[ZoalBucket]

All I'm reading is that the people responsible for the construction and operation of the Gautrain made some serious mistakes regarding its implementation and the future feasibility of the whole thing. Some serious oversights in my opinion.

[Inertia]

Govt’s Gautrain bill shrinks to R70m a month as ridership jumps

The patronage guarantee government paid to Bombela, the operator of the Gautrain system, had dropped from between R80-million and R85-million a month last year, to between R70-million and R75-million a month this year, said Gautrain Management Agency CEO Jack van der Merwe on Thursday.

The decline was the result of increasing ridership on the public transport system. Average weekday passenger trips on the train increased from 26 000 at the beginning of April 2012 to 42 000 at the end of March this year.

Gautrain bus trip users were increasing at an average rate of 6.6% a month, while Gautrain ridership grew at an average of 2.1%.

According to the agreement between government and Bombela, signed at the onset of the R26-billion project, a patronage guarantee would be payable to the operator to ensure it covered all of its costs, while still making a reasonable profit.

It was expected that the guarantee payable would decrease as fare box income increased, with a system of 50/50 profit sharing between government and Bombela applicable once the fare box reached a state where all of Bombela’s costs were covered.

Bombela’s costs included operational costs, maintenance and replacement costs and the servicing of loans. Its income included fare box revenue, value-add income (such as advertising revenue), and then the patronage guarantee to make up the shortfall.

Van der Merwe emphasised that public transport was subsidised worldwide, and that the Gautrain was no different. Metrorail was also heavily subsidised, at roughly two-thirds of ticket costs.

He expected to reach the profit sharing phase of the concession “in a few years’ time”.

Fare box income would, in the meantime, show improvement in June as Gautrain ticket prices was set to increase by 6%. However, there would be a 15% reduction in fares during the off-peak period, between 09h00 and 15h00.

This pricing structure was an attempt to flatten out a user curve that showed sharp peaks from Tshwane to Johannesburg in the mornings, and vice versa in the afternoons.

Van der Merwe added that additional train capacity would be implemented in June, when yet another four-car train would become an eight-car train, while it was also possible to change the seating arrangement on the train to accommodate more standing passengers. Trains could also run at a ten-minute headway, and not 12 minutes during peak hours, as was currently the case.

With many station parking areas also at capacity, the system was set to receive 259 additional parking bays at Rhodesfield station, 150 at Pretoria station and 1 800 at the popular Centurion station.

Four Route Extensions Studied
Van der Merwe said that cost benefit analyses were being conducted on four possible extensions of the Gautrain route. He emphasised that any extension would have to make money-sense to government.

As to whether the political will existed to expand the Gautrain footprint – with the construction of the rail system once met with a rather chilly response from national government – Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport Ismail Vadi said it was clear that rail would need to become the backbone of public transport in Gauteng, as the province’s population was set to double in the next few years.

However, whether this “inescapable reality” would benefit Metrorail or the Gautrain – or both – was not clear. Costs would play a “vital role” in making this decision.

Vadi acknowledged, though, that the poor and middle class were both in need of public transport solutions, especially as the province’s population numbers expanded.

He added that 2014 would also the introduction a new set of government leaders, following a national election.

Although not said, this could imply a possible delay in project execution or change in policy direction.

Important points in bold, otherwise nothing new

[Hennie]

To get tax payers to work and keep the economy running should make money sense to any government even if the actual means of getting said tax payers to work is run at a loss!

[Pule]

Guys, there's a development of the new Food Court at Park Station's Gautrain side. I tried to google for the info but can't find anything.