The current plan to greatly extend the Gautrain network will fail to address one of the country’s biggest problems.
This is according to Stellenbosch University emeritus professor Jan Havenga, a respected logistics researcher and former Transnet and Spoornet senior manager.
In a recent interview with the radio station RSG, Havenga highlighted that the planned Gautrain expansion overlooks townships and areas with existing rail infrastructure.
Gauteng’s rail service is set to receive a R120-billion expansion that add 150km of track to the existing 80km line, almost tripling its coverage.
It will add new lines running through areas such as Soweto, Fourways, Mamelodi, Atteridgeville, Lanseria, and Springs, which will link to the existing route passing through Rosebank, Sandton, Marlboro, Rhodesfield, Midrand, Centurion, and Pretoria.
Havenga acknowledged that a service like the Gautrain can help to reduce congestion, pointing out that it already removes around 10,000 cars from the roads per day, and that this could increase to approximately 20,000.
However, he also voiced concerns that the expansion will not solve one of South Africa’s biggest economic hurdles – transport accessibility.
He noted that South Africa has very high transport costs relative to other countries due to an overreliance on road transport like private cars and minibus taxis.
“In India, people are paying less than 5% of their monthly salary on commuting. In South Africa, it is 40% to 50%,” he said.
“The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) metro system already takes in the region of 15,000 minibux taxis off roads per day, with the potential to take 100,000 to 300,000 taxis off roads every day,” Havenga said.
South Africa previously had roughly 700 to 800 million annual passenger rides on trains in the 1980s, but this dropped to 600 million by 2010.
Numbers plummeted to just 10 million in 2020 as a result of the pandemic and stolen infrastructure, but this has since improved to 100 million thanks to repairs and the introduction of new trains.
Havenga argued that the Gautrain expansion to the north west of the province, where there is no Metrorail transport infrastructure, could be beneficial.
He also contends that the expansion should not focus on areas that already have access to Metrorail, and that the Gautrain should simply connect to these zones rather than extending into them.
“The network is already in place, the rail has already been built, everything is there. It makes no sense to build in the direction of Soweto,” he said.
Havenga has frequently commuted on the new blue trains used by Prasa in Soweto and Cape Town and regards them as on par with the Gautrain, despite being cheaper.
Gautrain underperforming
While the Gautrain is generally considered to be a good service, it is still only carrying around a third of its original target of 130,000 daily users.
Even with its high ticket prices, the Gauteng provincial government still provides an annual subsidy known as the patronage guarantee.
The subsidy cost R3.1 billion in the 2025 financial year, and it is estimated that taxpayers have spent over R18 billion on Gautrain subsidies over the 16 years the service has been available.
The Automobile Association (AA) has criticised the Gautrain and the current expansion plans for this reason, arguing that the service is a money sink that has failed to produce the results needed to justify its enormous cost.
It reasoned that the Gautrain is too expensive for the commuters who need it the most, and that it functions as a premium solution when the province needs reliable, affordable, mass-market transport.
In response to criticisms about affordability, the Gautrain introduced its KlevaMova tickets in 2025, which offer a 50% discount for certain groups, including the elderly, disabled, pupils, and households earning less than R350,000 per year.
The AA said that the money for the Gautrain expansion would be better spent on a provincial-scale bus service, and on the repair and maintenance of the existing Metrorail and Prasa networks.
It also wants the government to spend more on taxi ranks to improve safety and expand first- and last-mile coverage to and from the existing Gautrain stations.
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