The rail industry in South Africa is represented by Spoornet, the only rail operator in this country. The rail industry in South Africa has undergone profound changes since the deregulation of the transport industry. Driving the changes that the rail industry now finds itself were the adoption of new technology, government legislation, difficult trading conditions, the strengthening of the rand and growing transport options available to rail customers. The rail transport industry must not only survive but also prosper in a radically different environment, to that in which it operated as a monopoly prior to 1990. As South African companies are becoming more export driven by catering to international markets, these companies are governed by stringent international practices in terms of the manufacturing of goods and services. As such it is imperative for South Africa's transport companies to render a seamless transport and logistics service in order to facilitate the expansion of these local companies into new global markets. This research aims to identify the factors that impact the level of service in the rail transport industry and to determine the actions necessary to improve the current levels of service. This research was undertaken amongst Spoornet's Import / Export customers nationally. It investigates service quality in the rail transport industry by utilising the Servqual methodology. The Servqual measuring instrument has been found to be a reliable measure of service quality. A sample of 50 customers was selected and previous research on the topic reviewed. The statistical analysis revealed that respondents indicated a high expectation of service and a low perception of service received. As a result, urgent attention must be focused on Spoornet's service delivery. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.

M.Comm. / Spoornet ( South African Transport Services before 1991) realised since the early 1980's that pressure from its environment would have a serious effect on its economic survival. Since 1991 it has had to fight for its marketshare. Road transport companies started to beat Spoornet on all levels and robbed it of its client base. Spoornet was forced to reform its customer services approach. Pantograph-overheadwire entanglements is one of the obstacles in obtaining customer satisfaction due to the fact that one such incident can cause a train delay of up to three hours. Due the impact this has on the predictability of service, the Chief Engineer (Electrical) set as first objective an entanglement figure of 1 per million pantograph kilometres. A few informal investigations were made into possible technical reasons but none was made into the possible non-technical reasons. As hypothesis it was stated that the efforts of personnel in the organisation to solve the entanglement problem were being handicapped by the lack of motivation, which caused a atmosphere of conflict and frustration. This frustration and conflict has a negative influence on productivity and effectiveness which could be the cause of entanglements. Research done on this was conducted on a dual approach; Literature study as secondary information. Structured interview as primary information. The hypothesis was tested with this study and it was shown that inter-groupconflict, motivation, resource employment and the current approach all had aspects which needed to be addressed to solve the pantograph-overheadwire entanglement problem.

M.Ing. / Spoornet currently has a fleet of more than 1500 electric locomotives in service. The majority of electric locomotives are resistor controlled but there are many chopper as well as thyristor controlled locomotives which all incorporate direct current (dc) traction motors. In recent years Spoornet has also bought locomotives employing alternating current (ac) traction motors. Because locomotives are very expensive and the running costs are high it is important that these locomotives must be available and reliable. Most of the newer generation locomotives, which are the semiconductor controlled locomotives, must be in service for at least another 20 years. The availability and reliability are often influenced by delayed design problems as well as problems arising due to changes in the total system configuration. One way of solving these problems, or at least understanding them, is by employing computer simulations. The availability and reliability can also be improved by using new technologies which were not originally employed on the locomotives. By doing computer simulations the optimal solution can be obtained when introducing new technologies on the locomotive. A good example of this type of application within Spoornet is given in [6], where simulation models for high technology locomotives were developed which were suitable to be used in the assessment of electromagnetic compatibility between modern power electronic locomotives and the railway signaling system. However, these models are also suited to be used in other applications. These models make use of the ATP-EMTP simulation program.

M.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

State-owned enterprises (SOE’s) in South Africa have long been financial albatrosses around the government’s neck. The government decided to restructure them so that they can play a role in the overall economic development of the country (Didiza, 2002:15). Transnet, one of South Africa’s largest SOE’s, is the largest transportation company in South Africa and is divided into various business units, of which Spoornet (rail transportation) is one. Spoornet has had to evolve from a subsidised state owned enterprise to a semi-privatised business unit, able to survive in a competitive business world. This entailed streamlining and restructuring the business unit in order for it to become more productive and financially fit. One of the biggest threats was the amount of human capital that Spoornet employed. The workforce had to be reduced in order to allow Spoornet to become an effective and competitive business unit. In addition to this, Spoornet must adhere to affirmative action policies instituted by government labour laws (Employment Equity Act, Act 55 of 1998). This act was introduced to redress the present effects of South Africa’s past in bringing about a diverse workforce broadly representing South Africa’s demographics. This has resulted in early retirement packages being offered to assist Spoornet in achieving employment equity targets. All of these changes have had a major impact on employee turnover that has resulted in a large amount of skills and expertise being lost. Professional, specialised and skilled people are in global demand, which has added to the exodus of employees from many organisations. Spoornet has experienced this at an alarming rate, so much so that in 2001, they established a retention committee to address ways to reverse the high number of specialised employee exits. Abstract iv The overall purpose of the research was to identify strategies for Spoornet to retain their specialised and skilled employees, thereby reducing the amount of specialised and skilled staff turnover. The research methodology for this study comprised the following steps: • Firstly, a full literature study regarding strategies that an organisation can utilise for the retention of their critical employees was researched. • Secondly, the views of current Spoornet employees on retention strategies were assessed in an empirical study, which involved completing a questionnaire. • Lastly, recommendations due to the findings of the researcher were identified for Spoornet to retain their highly skilled and specialised employees.

M.Ing. / This report addresses an empirical study into the re-structuring of Transnet group of companies. The study is based on the outcome of the re-engineering process focusing on Spoornet as a member of Transnet. The departments partially studied are, the Infrastructure Maintenance department and Train Operations department with-in Spoornet. The objective of this study is to achieve a break-even point between maintenance and the business side so as to increase operational profit in Spoornet. Outsourcing is a management tool used to make more profit. It is also a way of getting rid of unwanted business units. This will help increase shareholder value and reduce operating costs so that management can focus on core business units. The results expected from outsourcing in this study are aligned with the business process engineering "BPR" results. From the BPR results the business units were classified as core and non-core business units. Non-core business units were discontinued while core business units were further classified into core department, which is the running of trains, and the non-core department as maintenance departments. The maintenance departments are fully represented on a functional level while they used to have a full representative on the corporate level before restructuring. Cutting-off these logistic support departments at a corporate level, can have an effect on maintenance being undermined due to lack of specialists input at a higher level in terms of systems engineering and maintenance. This can lead to system's lack of maintenance and an increase in systems failure, making the system un-reliable and unsafe for the passage of trains while on the other hand the business will be lost back to the competitors, who in this case is the road freight business. A case study is discussed in the dissertation where value added techniques such as the business turnaround process, outsourcing and Integrated Logistic Support "maintenance" were applied in this study.