TRANSNET: Driving the Vaccine Rollout While Sustaining SA’s Economy

Transnet’s structural transformation in 2007 prompted a wholesale reshuffling and repositioning of the legendary brand. The main outcome of this evolution was the establishment of a coherent set of business units and operations, able to function together effectively as one single monolith to deliver on its philosophy of, ‘one company, one vision.’

All of the Transnet sub-brands are driven by this same central principle, uniting freight rail, rail engineering, national ports authority and port terminals, pipelines and property to operate and control South Africa’s major transport infrastructures and ensure that these operate to world-class standards.

“As a state-owned company, Transnet continues to leave an indelible mark on the lives of all South Africans,” sums up the company, headquartered in the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg. “With a geographical footprint that covers our entire country, Transnet is inextricably involved in all aspects of life in South Africa.

“Transnet’s objective is to ensure a globally competitive freight system that enables sustained growth and diversification of the country’s economy.”

TRANSVACO DELIVERS         

The Transnet Foundation represents the Corporate Social Investment (CSI) arm of the company, and has been the vehicle by which Transnet has been able to deliver far-reaching benefits and support to vitally impact the communities and environments in which it operates.

Vast time and resources have already been dedicated to introducing a number of diverse programmes around the country, and in August we learned of arguably Transnet’s most significant, impactful CSI drive to date. “Development began in February,” Zodwa Mashishi, Executive Manger: Corporate Affairs, Transnet Engineering, begins, of the pioneering Transvaco vaccination train introduced to bolster government efforts to reach herd immunity in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We realised that Covid-19 was going nowhere, and we saw the opportunity here to provide an unmatched response to what we could see unfolding not just locally, but globally, to ease the burden on healthcare services.

“Obviously, we have all felt the devastating effects of Covid-19, and continue to do so, and this was our effort to help rollout vaccinations countrywide. We realised that we had an almost unmatched capability to actually put this into practice, paired with in-house engineers able to design these coaches in line with what we have done successfully before.”

It is modelled on the Phelophepa health trains, which have been providing primary healthcare services in under-serviced areas across South Africa over the past 27 years. “Similarly, but on an even larger scale, the Transvaco aims to reach, and vaccinate, communities in remote parts of the country, and areas where health facilities are over-burdened,” Mashishi explains.

With state-of-the-art vaccine facilities including ultra-low temperature vaccine fridges, Transvaco was designed and built by the Transnet Engineering manufacturing division and can store up to 108,000 vials of different types of Covid-19 vaccines.

Vaccine availability and procurement have improved markedly since the end of the summer months, and South Africa is now one of the 15 countries worldwide currently where 10% of the populace is fully vaccinated, per WHO targets. It has also now surpassed the 16 million mark for total administered Covid-19 doses since the start of its vaccination rollout programme.

The innate portability of Transvaco, combined with Transnet’s unerring aim to harness the power of people and technology to secure a brighter future, could prove crucial not just within South Africa’s borders but throughout Africa, where roughly 10 in 100 people have now received at least one dose. “We said to ourselves: we have the experience, the expertise and a highly competent workforce which we can employ in distributing the vaccine nationally, so let’s use it,” Mashishi goes on. “This vaccine is going to continue to be produced for a long time to come and it will need to be distributed, and Transvaco’s value could even extend beyond the South African efforts and across the whole continent.

“It is a real showcase of our capabilities along the whole process, from engineering, to design and manufacturer, and finally handover, and represents a monumental milestone for us. We are proud to be offering this huge helping hand to government to expedite the vaccine rollout, not just here but as far as the likes of Swaziland, Botswana and Mozambique. We are taking the clinic directly to the people and maximising the delivery of this critical vaccine.”

STRENGTH IN INTEGRATION

With life-changing ingenuity in full swing, February turned out to be a busy month for Transnet as it showcased its ability to combine this with the maintenance and uplift of its core, more conventional operations. Forced to act swiftly and decisively at the height of the pandemic to improve locomotive availability and stabilise capacity on its vast coal line, Transnet succeeded in shoring up supply of this vital export commodity.

Coal volume deliveries had been impacted by a litany of obstacles including low demand sparked by Covid-19 and theft incidents. In response, Transnet implemented the fast-tracking of locomotive maintenance where feasible, reallocation of suitable locomotives throughout the business and robust integrated security management plans.

Transnet also used February to pilot an innovative inland operation at the Cape Town Container Terminal, resulting in relief on the roads and goods being moved more efficiently to the ports while reducing costs. Successfully easing congestion, the haulage of reefer containers from Belcon Inland Terminal in Bellville to the port was an astute bid to improve efficiencies, initially involving 20 containers and set to be gradually increased.

Unlike a truck, which carries one reefer container per trip, one train has the capacity to carry and deliver up to 36 containers each time. Mashishi pinpoints the modal shift from road to rail as a key focal point for the country’s onward efficiencies, and this is just one of the projects supporting the company’s strategy. “The roads are experiencing difficulties on a daily basis,” she reveals, “and this is largely due to market share. Trucks are carrying coal and containers, which is totally inefficient, and the question for us to answer is how to seamlessly take back that market share from roads and towards rail, where there are big savings to be made.”

Although less likely to dominate headlines than the potentially era-defining importance of Transvaco, these recent triumphs are no less illustrative of the company’s dominance in South African logistics, and there are several factors poised to keep it at the top, Mashishi makes clear.

“Our people have long been a key differentiator for us,” she says. “We have a very skilled, competent and capable workforce ranging from engineers to artisans and technical people. Our facilities are way ahead, as well, and our in-house capacity is amazing, while from a research and development and knowledge point of view we have time and again demonstrated that nobody else comes close.

“More than anything, though, it is integration that is vital.” Transnet’s integration as a freight transport company, around its core of six complementing operating divisions, has been transformational. The likes of the Cape Town Container Terminal collaboration between Transnet’s Port Terminals and Freight Rail divisions demonstrate this strength explicitly, but it is integral to Transnet’s entire approach and lends it the strength required to be the backbone of the country’s freight logistics chain.

“The main intention of the 2007 structural transformation was to achieve a coherent set of business units and operations that could function together effectively. We certainly achieved this aim, and now he reality of the value chain makes it essential that we remain integrated,” Mashishi underlines of this central aspect of Transnet’s operations.

“We occupy such a diversified position but our divisions compliment each other perfectly and are intimately linked. Whether through manufacturing, ports or rail, the bottom line is that we exist to deliver freight reliably, to each and every one of our stakeholders. We are the major player in the Southern African transport and logistics arena and are building on existing corridors and clusters, to exploit the synergy between port and rail and create valuable business opportunities that extend far beyond the shorelines and borders of the country.”