Opportunities for public private partnerships in IRPTN infrastructure

Abstract

The Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network interventions in 13 cities in South Africa came about as a result of a forward thinking public transport strategy being presented by Government in 2007. Since then, costs of both implementation and operation have been shown to be higher than expected. The future budgeted capital funding required to roll out the proposed public transport investments are in excess of the level of grant funding likely to be available from the national fiscus. Third party funding options need to be actively investigated and developed to augment the capital investment allocations provided through the national fiscus. One such third party funding option is Public Private Partnerships in the development and operation of selected public transport infrastructure. This paper aims to reduce the mystique attached to Private Public Partnership (PPP) initiatives and seeks to link the use of PPP principles to the funding difficulties in IRPTNs. The paper concludes that PPP?s may well be a viable source of funding for selected elements or components of the IRPTNs. This will however require interventions at a National level in order to reduce the administrative burden on each of the 13 involved cities.