South Africa requires a new freight railway line between Durban and Gauteng, much more than it needs a high-speed passenger service, said University of Johannesburg Department of Transport and Supply Chain Management head Professor Jackie Walters on Thursday.

Speaking at the Transport Forum, held at the university, he noted that there was a good road network between Durban and Johannesburg, while air travel between the cities was also affordable, allowing for largely seamless personal movement.

However, statistics showed that the N3 highway between KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng was under such pressure from trucks, that there were only three hours a day when the number of cars exceeded the number of trucks on this road.

Walters advocated the construction of a new standard gauge railway line between these provinces, dedicated to freight, and able to handle train wagons with two containers stacked on top of each other.

This line could also offer a limited passenger service.

Walters said the desire for a high-speed passenger line, as had been expressed in some corners of government, followed international trends, and did not take into account the current needs of  the South African economy.

“We need to get containers off the road. We need to move them back to rail. The speed of the entire N3 system is slowing. We also have to secure the economic stature of the Gauteng province in South Africa.”

Gauteng 25-year integrated transport master plan (ITMP25) project leader Jack van der Merwe said on Thursday that planned expansions at the Durban port system could see the number of containers moving to Gauteng increase from the current 1.75-million a year, to around 10-million a year.

“This means we will have 26 000 trucks running around in Gauteng each day.”

The ITMP25 should be completed by the end of October, with the period for public feedback on the document now closed.