Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has issued a request for information to attract private investment in rebuilding South Africa's passenger rail network, targeting 600 million annual journeys by the end of the decade. The initiative emphasizes state ownership while seeking market input to design the future of rail amid past challenges like theft and mismanagement. Recent improvements in service reliability offer cautious optimism for recovery.
On 26 October 2025, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy launched a request for information (RFI) aimed at reimagining passenger rail in South Africa. This move seeks private sector collaboration to support the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) in achieving 600 million annual passenger journeys by 2030, with potential doubling by 2040-2050. Creecy stressed that the RFI is not a tender but "an invitation for the market to help us design the future of rail," maintaining state ownership of networks and ruling out privatization.
Prasa's decline was severe, marked by systemic corruption, mismanagement, and physical decay. Between 2019 and 2023, 4,633km of copper cable was stolen—enough to stretch from Cape Town to Cairo twice—exacerbated by vandalism during the Covid-19 lockdown. Academic Pieter Onderwater, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, highlighted reliability as key to passenger loss: for every 1% decrease in reliability, volumes drop by 2%. By 2024/25, Prasa reported an operating deficit exceeding R8-billion, with fewer than 50% of trains running on time pre-recovery.
Signs of progress emerged since 2022. In 2024/25, Prasa invested R21.1-billion in capital expenditure, restoring 35 of 40 service lines and resuming about 70% of services. Passenger trips nearly doubled to 77 million from 39.4 million the prior year, reaching 20% of pre-2015 levels. On-time performance hit 91%, cancellations fell to 3%, and customer satisfaction rose to 76%—comparable to European operators at 70-80%.
Onderwater noted, "The Prasa of the last three to four years is not the same Prasa from the 2010s," crediting recovery efforts but warning that private investment requires profitability, especially for subsidized urban services. The RFI closes on 15 December 2025, with processing taking four to six months before requests for proposals in 2026. Creecy acknowledged fiscal limits, stating, "To continue on the recovery path requires additional investment that cannot be carried by our fiscus alone."
Earlier freight RFI responses from 95 companies showed interest in unbundled projects and cost efficiencies, signaling potential for passenger rail if structured with subsidies and guarantees.