Metrorail Business Express Offering Exceeds Critics' Expectations

26 January 2009

While South Africa's highways become increasingly congested year on year, a solution has been sought by Metrorail to offer business clients a less expensive yet comfortable commuting option in its Northern trains. The 2nd of February will see the business express train in Cape Town put railway commuting by railway back on the cards and will be the fourth train of the service offering open to the public.

"Our job is to change public discourse in favour of trains," Tshepo Lucky Montana, CEO of Metrorail stated in January of 2007. Now, two years later the company is doing just that by ensuring that it delivers on its promises. "The Northern Express continues on the path already established by its predecessors, the Khayelitsha, Soweto and Tshwane Business Express Trains, in responding to customer demands for a first class train service," Montana outlines.

A comment by writer Jonathon Yudelowitz in Business Day last year hits home this point, "Despite no track record in luxury commuting, Metrorail showed leadership by providing an alternative to high petrol prices and traffic congestion.." The comment referred to the Pretoria to Johannesburg Business Express that has been running since 2008.

Offering the public a safer and cheaper alternative to commuting by car, Metrorail has sought to change the perception of the railway service in South Africa from one that services only those who have no alternative transport, to a service that offers a broad range of services to South Africans from every walk of life. Through this type of planning, the company has proven its critics wrong that suggest it is impossible to coax commuters out of their cars and onto the trains.

The new Northern Express service runs from Cape Town to Strand, making five more stops in between. By offering onboard security, secure parking at its stations and convenient business facilities including laptop docking points and dedicated cabin services such as refreshments and newspapers, Metrorail has taken care to answer the needs of the business person directly.

Montana explains, "The introduction of Business Express Services has been a key milestone in the process of repositioning Metrorail as a world-class organisation. This achievement is a clear demonstration that Metrorail has the potential to play a major role and could serve as the backbone of an efficient transport system in South Africa."