Overall assets objectives are to:

1. Sustain integrity of assets.
2. Assure optimal asset condition.
3. Prioritise the methodology for rail infrastructure capital.

2.1 Infrastructure

SARCC owns, manages and maintains commuter rail infrastructure. It is facing a major challenge of ensuring a safe and reliable asset base for the commuter. Priority is being given to critical assets, which have a high impact on the business. Ongoing condition assessments and monitoring are carried out to ensure the development of rehabilitation programmes.

The following chart indicates the relative proportion of the three technical disciplines.

2.2 Rolling Stock

SARCC is faced with an ageing Rolling Stock fleet. It has embarked on a programme that will address the old Rolling Stock problem through refurbishment and purchase of new train sets.

The plan is to continually buy new coaches while upgrading old ones and eventually achieving a scenario whereby, in about 40 year's time the SARCC will have replaced all of its 4 625 coaches. This includes the refurbishing of about half of the existing coaches and extending their lives by 15 to 20 years at a cost of about 20 percent of that of a new coach.

This graph shows the number of SARCC's Rolling Stock according to categories.

The number of refurbished coaches is illustrated below:

2.3 Physical Planning

SARCC's planning objectives are to:

• Determine network capacity.
• Develop systems (new line extensions, stations) in support of metropolitan demand (growth).
• Build cognitive capacity in the transportation and development planning fraternity.
• Promote professional competency and relationships with stakeholders.

The promulgation of the National Land Transport Act will determine new responsibilities with respect to urban transport at Provincial and Metropolitan government levels. This will require an intensified level of interaction between SARCC and the authorities towards the development of Integrated Transport Plans with concurrent demand for localised information and data. This will necessitate effective and proficient response of a quality commensurate with the systems available to and compatible with those of the authorities.

2.4 Commuter Rail Property Portfolio

Faced with managing a property portfolio of 374 rail commuter stations and some 4 200 hectares of land in major metropolitan areas with a book value in excess of R2.6 billion, SARCC formed a specialist property management company called Intersite Property Management Services during 1992 to perform this task on its behalf.

Over and above the building of new stations, upgrading and maintaining stations, Intersite is commercialising them and generates income for commuter rail. Money earned from the commercial aspects of Intersite's activities is ploughed back to reduce the subsidy provided by the Government.