Cape Town's deteriorating train service quantified

A 400% increase in train cancellations in the Western Cape has been recorded over two years.

"Train cancellations in the Western Cape have risen from 3% in October 2015‚ to well over 15% by July 2017‚" said Hinana.

"This sharp rise is extremely alarming‚" he said in a statement.

Hinana said rail remains the backbone of commuter public transport in the Western Cape. "However‚ it is continuously unreliable."

Currently‚ more than 620‚000 passengers make use of Metrorail across the province‚ equating to 48% of the total commuter traffic.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) on Tuesday briefed the Standing Committee on the current state of the Metrorail service.

Crime remains a massive hindrance with regards to Metrorail’s ability to be more efficient‚ Hinana reported.

In October‚ 2015‚ train punctuality‚ or the percentage of trains on time‚ was at 80%. However‚ in July 2017 train punctuality dropped to approximately 65%.

During the same period‚ 101 train coaches were lost due to damages sustained by fire‚ equating to as much as R312 million.

Metrorail stated that 88 train sets are required to run the service efficiently in the province.

"Currently‚ only 61 train sets are available which have to cover over 450km per day."

He welcomed the plan to restore the amount of train sets from 61 back to 88 over the next 18-24 months‚ but called for security measures to be put into place to ensure that cable theft‚ crime‚ and damage to infrastructure is decreased.