Infrastructure

South Africa's transport network

Modern highways, trains and airways make travel both comfortable and convenient. As new ideas and technologies are embraced in partnership with foreign companies, South Africa continues to serve as the African role model for technological sophistication and advancement.

Located at the southernmost tip of the African continent, South Africa is ideally positioned for easy access to the countries of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which consists of 14 countries with a total population of 180 million. The country also serves as a trans-shipment point between the emerging markets of Central and South America and the newly industrialised nations of South and Far East Asia.

Airways
Since it commenced operations over five years ago, the semi-privatised Airports Company South Africa Limited (ACSA) has transformed a fragmented parastatal into a service-oriented and market-driven commercial enterprise.

ACSA's primary task has been to upgrade standards at the country's airports and improve productivity. The company currently handles approximately 90% of the country's aviation requirements, operating three international airports (Johannesburg International, Cape Town International, and Durban International) and six national airports (Port Elizabeth, East London, George, Kimberly, Upington and Bloemfontein). The company also recently decided to acquire the Pilanesberg Airport near Sun City as well as at Plettenberg Bay and Richards Bay.

Encouraged by the potentially lucrative retail and property sectors, ACSA has also identified the opportunities existing in airport retailing and continues to make progress in developing both airport infrastructure and peripheral property.

Since 1994 international air traffic movements have increased by more than 70% and the number of departing international passengers by 85% to 2,6 million. The total number of departing passengers rose by 3.1 million to 9.5 million and aircraft landings increased by 59 112 to 187 423 over the five-year period. The market is expected to grow at an average annual growth rate of approximately 30% until the year 2030.

ACSA has embarked on a series of ambitious capital projects aiming to transform South Africa's major airports into world class tourist gateways, planning to spend R800 million in the next financial year on capital expenditure and a total of R2.6 billion by the end of 2004.

Ports
Major shipping lanes pass along the South African coastline in the south Atlantic and Indian oceans, through its seven commercial ports which form by far the largest, best equipped and most efficient network on the African continent.

The National Ports Authority (NPA), a division of Transnet, is the largest port authority in greater southern Africa, controlling seven of the 16 biggest ports in this region. These are Richards Bay, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Cape Town and Saldanha.

These ports are not only conduits for trade between South Africa and her partners in SACU and SADC, but also function as hubs for traffic emanating from, and destined for, Europe, Asia, the Americas and the east and west coasts of Africa.

In 2002, South African ports handled an average of 13 000 vessels carrying 500 million tons of cargo annually, with major upgrades currently under way to increase handling capacity and absorb the rapid increase in commercial traffic.

The NPA is building the modern deepwater port while the Coega Development Corporation is developing the entire land-side infrastructure for the Industrial Development Zone.

Coega, comprising an industrial development complex and deepwater port 20 kilometres east of the city of Port Elizabeth, is the single largest infrastructure development project in the country since 1994. It has already pulled R5-billion in committed investment, and looks set to make South Africa the hub of all north-south and south-south sea traffic.

Coega Development Corporation

Through its borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho, well-developed road and rail links provide the platform and infrastructure for ground transportation deep into sub-Saharan Africa.

Rail
Spoornet and the SA Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC) control South Africa's rail network.

Spoornet provides goods, container services as well as long distance passenger services. Metrorail, a division of Transnet Ltd, is responsible for operating the metropolitan commuter system in seven regions: Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, East London, Berlin (Uitenhage) and Wits Greater Johannesburg.

It is contracted to provide this service to the SARCC, which owns the rolling stock and most of the infrastructure.

Spoornet is the largest railroad operator in southern Africa – it has 31 700km of single rail track, 3 500 locomotives and 124 000 wagons.

Spoornet

Road
South Africa's national road network currently covers 7 200km, with about 20 000km of primary roads planned in the future.

The roads include 1 400km of dual carriageway freeway, 440km of single carriageway freeway and 5 300km of single-carriage main road with unlimited access. Approximately 1 900km are toll roads, serviced by 27 mainline toll plazas.

Government projects to maintain new and existing roads, as well as the construction of several new toll road developments, are under way.

The South African National Roads Agency Limited is an independent, statutory company registered in terms of the Companies Act. The government is the sole shareholder and owner of the company. Its mandate is to develop, maintain and manage the country's national road network comprising over R30 billion in assets, excluding land.