Gautrain Operator, Bombela Operating Company Wins Train Operator of the Year Award at Inaugural Rail Industry Awards
On Thursday, 29 October 2024, the Bombela Operating Company (BOC), which operates and maintains the Gautrain, was awarded the Train Operator of the Year award at the inaugural Rail Industry Awards hosted by the Railway Safety Regulator.
The award recognises the excellent operations and maintenance of the Gautrain and comes in a year when South Africa celebrates 30 years of democracy and the achievements attained to date.
Launched in 2010, the Gautrain is a legacy public-private partnership project that has become a best-practice case study in successful public-private collaboration. Fourteen years later, it remains revered as a symbol of excellence and a practical example of the type of mobility South Africans aspire to today and into the future.
A big part of delivering this optimistic sentiment and futuristic ambitions for urban mobility is the day-to-day operation of the rapid rail connecting OR Tambo Airport, Johannesburg, and Pretoria.
“The recognition and credit go to our over 2100 employees[1] dedicated to ensuring that South Africans and visitors enjoy a world-class experience onboard the Gautrain and its feeder transport systems,” says Nthabiseng Kubheka, CEO of the Bombela Operating Company.
Kubheka says that to date, the Gautrain has completed over 192 million passenger trips, with over 95% availability and punctuality across all Gautrain services.
“This is our humble contribution towards delivering a multimodal integrated public transport system while promoting South Africa as an investment market of choice and supporting mobility day to day and during the country’s hosting of big sporting events,” she notes.
“Recognition is good; however, we strive to continuously improve our performance. We benchmark our local offering with global best practices and are proud that the Gautrain’s performance is on par and in some instances surpasses that of international networks. We thank our majority shareholder, RATP Dev, who has provided us with the much-needed global exposure and expertise as they operate some of the busiest and densest networks worldwide and in Africa, including in Egypt and Morocco,” she says.
She notes that President Ramaphosa has also alluded to passenger rail’s role in alleviating poverty and unemployment by enabling workers to move to and from work efficiently.
“We are grateful to be entrusted with the responsibility of transporting South Africans and we believe that ours is to deliver to the client and the country’s expectations, be it on Project Management, Operational Performance, Safety & Security Performance, Asset Management, Passenger Experience, and or End-to-end transport Management and visibility,” she concluded.
[1] 500 direct and 1600 indirect employees who are involved in the various aspects of operating and maintaining the Gautrain.
