CoCT going ahead with business plan to take over passenger rail services
This follows the council’s adoption of a comprehensive rail feasibility study which proposes three potential ownership models for the rail service.
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis addressed the city council on 30 October 2024. Picture: @CityofCT/X
JOHANNESBURG - The City of Cape Town is steaming ahead with a business plan to take over the management of passenger rail services in the metro.
During Thursday's final council meeting of the year, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis told councillors the city is set to produce business plans to take over passenger rail services by mid-2025.
This follows the council’s adoption of a comprehensive rail feasibility study that proposes three potential ownership models for the rail service.
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Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says a key finding of the feasibility study is that the city should be in control of rail passenger services in the metro.
Hill-Lewis says this will ensure an efficient service in line with the city’s constitutional mandate to provide an integrated public transport system.
Following months of negotiations, the mayor says the Passenger Rail Agency of SA signed a service level agreement on Wednesday night.
"This service level agreement will ensure that the city is now able to exercise its constitutional role of more integrated transport planning and oversight in the metro."
Hill-Lewis says the agreement paves the way for an efficient rail service which could save lower-income homes more than R900 million a year.