Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has confirmed that a request for information (RFI) will be launched in July to assess the potential for private sector participation (PSP) investments in the passenger rail sector, including into high-speed rail links.

The launch follows on from the success of the freight-logistics RFI that closed on May 30 and which elicited more than 160 responses, including 51 in relation to the iron-ore and manganese corridor, 48 for the coal and chrome corridor, and 63 for the container and automotive intermodal corridor.

In an interview with Engineering News, Creecy said the passenger rail RFI was likely to focus on PSP prospects for long-distance routes, including the Johannesburg-Durban link, a Johannesburg-Musina route and a Johannesburg-Mbombela route, which have been identified as possible “rapid rail corridors”.

She said the RFI could also test the private sector’s interest in investing in depots, signalling and real-estate development within the existing Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA)  network, which was heavily vandalised during the Covid pandemic.

The move comes as Creecy confirmed that, by the end of May, PRASA had revived 35 of its 40 corridors and had achieved an unaudited figure of 77-million passenger journeys for the last financial year and was targeting 116-million in 2025/26. This remains well below pre-Covid levels of about 600-million passenger journeys.

She also announced that total transfers to the agency would be R66.1-billion over the coming three years, which would be used to maintain, recover and renew infrastructure, as well as to rebuild the signalling systems needed to roll-out new train sets on priority corridors.

As with the freight sector, any commercial procurement arising from the RFI would be managed by a PSP unit being set up by the Department of Transport, together with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the National Treasury.

Creecy told Engineering News that the unit, which is housed at the DBSA, already had some dedicated staff and should be in place to oversee the initial requests for proposals (RFPs) for the freight sector at the end of August.

These RFPs would be released in phases across the five rail and port corridors covered by the RFI.

It was not yet clear when the first passenger rail RFP would be launched.