AFRICAN PARALLELS
Page 30
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
South Africa's public transport system is about to be deregulated, after years of state control. The size of the country's potential passenger market is vast, and the changes will be far-reaching.
• In South Africa, the Government has for many years had a stranglehold on public transport. Private enterprise has hardly had a look-in, with South African Transport Services firmly in charge as the state-controlled overseer.
SAM owns and manages South African Railways, South African Airways, South African Pipelines, South African Harbours — if it moves, SATS moves it . . until now, that is because sweeping changes have been announced which will deregulate the entire transport network. In South Africa, as in Britain, state involvement in the public transport sector is diminishing with many state undertakings being forced to operate on private sector business principles.
Industry in South Africa, however, remains sceptical about the effect the changes will have. After so many years of total state control, freedom will come as a shock.
Inter-city coaching was non-existent in South Africa until a few years ago.
DICTATED
SATS dictated that people travelled by rail or by air until Greyhound launched a Johannesburg-Durban service with instant success and people flocked onto the longdistance coaches.
South Africa's Greyhound coaches are run by a company which is a subsidiary of Britain's United Transport Group and is not linked with the Greyhound coaches in the United States or in Australia.
As soon as Greyhound proved it could do well, SATS itself went into long dis tance intercity coaching. Greyhound went to court to try and keep SATS out of the market.
The court found in favour of SATS, allowing it to set up a rival service to Greyhound. The catch was that South Africa's minister of transport Schoeman immediately decided that SATS' inter-city coaching operation must be sold off to the private sector.
The Government was clearly saying that it would not interfere or compete in markets in which the private sector could provide an adequate service.
According to Greyhound's spokesman, Paul Browning, "SATS claimed in court Greyhound's Paul Browning: no reason why interci ty bus services should not operate in South Africa as they do in the rest of the world.
SATS Translux coaches began operations from Durban within a day of the court case which authorised the service.
that there was no need for such services, but that if there really was a need, then SATS was the rightful organisation to operate them."
Browning, an expatriate Englishman who used to work for British Rail and the National Bus Company, says, "In South Africa in the past the government would have exercised its monopoly and kept out the private sector. Today, that is no longer so."
The South African coach passenger market has vast potential. The coaches used by Greyhound are luxury units with reclining seats, air conditioning, multichannel entertainment facilities and refreshments included in the ticket price. Greyhound does not offer 'economy' tickets although its prices are still half those of equivalent sAiss rail journeys and a quarter those of trips by air.
MIGRANT
"Greyhound's first service was for black migrant workers from Johannesburg to Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe and the Transkei," says Browning. "The permits were obtained despite enormous objections from the railway, which claimed its services were the way to go. It would take 24 hours in each direction on rail, which did not allow much time at home at the weekend." Greyhound's coaches cover the same distance overnight.
Tapping the migrant worker market was a logical move for Greyhound, which had previously operated local bus services in Johannesburg. Last year the company transported 20 million people on its local buses, using 270 vehicles and 800 employees.
Intercity long distance coaching is the logical growth market as far as Greyhound is concerned and the firm is planning to establish a national network as soon as possible. A new service to Cape Town is due soon and other targets include Port Elizabeth and East London.
The company's fleet now needs to expand rapidly. At present, it only operates seven imported Mercedes and six locallybuilt ERFs with 70 staff,