Cape Town - Amid train delays, cancellations, railway vandalism and carriage robberies, Metrorail announced that it will be increasing the price of tickets from Wednesday.
The decision has been met by a slew of criticism, with unions threatening protest action over the extra financial burden this will place on the service’s 600 000 commuters.
The price of single tickets has risen by between 50c and R1. DA member and labour lawyer Michael Bagraim said it was a big step backwards for Metrorail which has been incrementally improving its services in the Cape Metro since November.
“A lot of people who rely on these trains are already living on the breadline,” said Bagraim on Tuesday, basing his comments on evidence gathered through working with the 700 small businesses on his books. “This price increase will undo all the good things (Metrorail) has achieved so far.”
The train company announced the nationwide price hike, which includes a R1 to R2 increase in weekly fares and a R2 to R38 increase in monthly fares, on its website on Tuesday. In a press statement, Metrorail’s regional manager in the Western Cape Richard Walker said the increase was “unavoidable”.
“The cost of operating the current service has burgeoned,” he said. “Major cost drivers like electricity and safety-critical components have increased far beyond therate of inflation.”
Vandalism, land invasion, service protests and vagrancy had all contributed to an “extra-ordinary maintenance burden”. Walker added that without the fare increase the region would have to streamline its current service.
While he did not expand on what that could mean for the railway, internationally transport companies have taken trains off the tracks and cut out less profitable areas in a bid to stay financially viable. According to Metrorail, the fare increase would add 6.5 percent more revenue to the region’s coffers.
The fare increase follows a dark period for the train company last year where widespread vandalism brought trains to a standstill and caused chaos at its stations. According to its parent company, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), the direct cost of vandalism nationally, due to repairs and replacements, reached R167 million by April 2014.
Among problem areas highlighted by both companies was the service’s central line which serves most of Cape Town’s townships. Vandals struck on an almost daily basis, stripping signal boxes and burning carriages. At one point, Prasa had even considered shutting down the Central Line after signal lines were “butchered” overnight last July.
But Bagraim said it now appeared the train service was improving, albeit slowly.
“Since November I’ve definitely noticed things getting better.”
Last year he was frequently told by the companies on his books that employees were arriving up to three hours late after being delayed on Metrorail’s trains. Many of these employees were dismissed.
“Now, it’s rare for me to be called in to head up disciplinary inquiries into these sorts of cases,” he said on Tuesday.
The reality is that the train service is still plagued by problems. Ageing infrastructure, including the trains themselves, see frequent delays. For example, almost half of the trains on Metrorail’s Northern line, which serves areas such as Stellenbosch and Strand, are late in the morning.
And 35 percent of the Central line’s morning-peak services are delayed. Around 12.7 percent of train services on the Southern line are cancelled.
Bagraim said regardless of the state of the service, ticket prices should not be getting more expensive.
“This is the one case where, whether it’s inflation or something else, the state should work on making the service cheaper.”
He warned the increase price could drive commuters to more unreliable transport, resulting in an increase of absenteeism.
Unions are already threatening to strike following the price hike. Congress of South African Trade Unions regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich said: “To increase the price of tickets in the face of a deteriorating service that is leading workers to spending more money on transport costs is unfair.”
He warned Metrorail against increasing the prices on Wednesday, adding that the union would embark on a protected strike against the “substandard service”. “We demand a stop be put to any fare increases until there is an improvement in the service.”
Standing committee chairman, Transport and Public Works, Lennit Max has called on Metrorail to appear before the committee and explain the impact the new fare prices will have on commuters. He said the railway company must explain how it plans to channel the increased revenue that will improve on “key challenges” such as safety, security and reliability. “These are chronic problems plaguing the system, at great risk to commuters, many of whom are women, children and elderly citizens.”
Maya Moodley, the Crime Scene Awareness co-ordinator for the DNA Project, noted that last week there had been no security on any of the trains she travelled on.
Cape Argus