The Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) has warned that it will use new powers at its disposal to fine and even suspend the permits of operators that repeatedly cause accidents on the national rail network.
Speaking to Business Times, RSR CEO Brian Monakali said the newly enacted Railway Safety Act has strengthened the regulator’s oversight role in keeping the rail network safer.
The act allows the RSR to enforce prohibition notices and issue penalties, especially for repeat offenders who now run the risk of having their permits suspended or cancelled.
“In some cases, where the team has tried to get you to correct, and there is no correction, we have an option to issue penalties, and depending on the severity of the matter, to issue a contravention notice, to say we are temporarily taking your permit back, you cannot operate.”
This comes as South Africa prepares to open the freight rail network to third-party operators, some of whom will start running trains as early as 2026.
The RSR, a unit of the department of transport, is reviewing its strategy to ensure a safer railway network that contributes to the country’s economic recovery.
Monakali, who has been in the role for two months, said the RSR was reviewing its processes to ensure better regulation of a key infrastructure critical to economic growth.
“How do we strengthen to ensure we are doing better? That requires us to review how we work, to review our capabilities and capacity and to strengthen our service,” he said.
The top priority was to ensure trains run safely on South Africa’s 21,000km rail network, he said. “We want to make sure that, come the next five to 10 years, when we look back, we can say we played a significant role in making sure the railway industry is safer than it was before. We are talking about zero injuries and not killing people, and running efficiently.”
The results of the review are expected at the end of November.
The country’s railway network is dominated by Transnet Freight Rail, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and Bombela Operating Company, operators of the Gautrain, which together account for 90% of the players.
The remaining 10% consists of private players Traxion, RRL Grindrod and others.
According to the RSR’s annual state of rail safety for the 2024/25 financial year, the industry reported 9,200 incidents, a 7.2% year-on-year decline and 9.4% below the five-year average.
However, operational safety incidents were up 10.9% year-on-year and were 10.1% above the five-year average.
The report blamed deteriorating infrastructure for contributing to people-related occurrences, collisions and derailments involving rolling stock, and the unauthorised movement of trains. It flagged a 40% year-on-year increase in collisions and said TFR accounted for 94% of all incidents involving moving trains.
Some 11 private operators have been provisionally allocated slots to operate on the Transnet-owned network. The aim is to increase rail volumes to 250m tonnes from 180MT by 2029, while Prasa will make 600-million passenger trips a year by 2030.
Monakali said while the reform will mean an increase in activity, “we don’t want to be a regulator that reacts; we want our main approach to be one of identifying where the risks are, and we do that through inspections and audit operations”.
He said that by the time third-party operators hit the railway lines, the regulator will have improved its standards. “We’re reviewing our standards to make sure they are stricter, as we drive the safety programme. There are going to be stricter and clearer safety standards.”
Monakali said the RSR’s main objective was for passenger and freight rail to recover in a way that doesn’t put lives at risk or damage infrastructure. “It is a recovery that does not kill people; a real recovery that does not injure people or harm the environment. We want the country to recover so we can do well, so that must be done safely”.
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