SADC’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE rolling-stock productivity. While such inefficiencies can be tolerated on low-volume feeder lines, and may be the only way some can be viably operated, they are a major handicap when competing against the modern roads being constructed along major corridors. In addition, countries that have suffered recent conflict (for example, Mozambique and Angola) have found it difficult to rehabilitate damaged rail lines.

**Table 2.4 Performance compared across southern African railways, 2005**

||**Labor**<br>**productivity**|**Locomotive**<br>**productivity**|**Carriage**<br>**productivity**|**Wagon**<br>**productivity**|**Freight yield**|**Passenger**<br>**yield**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Angola, CFM|580|30|4,046|950|||
|Botswana, BR|722|41|2,391|987|||
|Congo, Dem. Rep., SNCC|38|4|275|317|13|3|
|Malawi, CEAR|131|3|1,176|82|6|1|
|Mozambique, CCFB|281|13|750|476|3|1|
|Mozambique, CDN|710|25|3,333|260|5|1|
|Namibia, Transnamib|484|25||805|||
|South Africa, Spoornet|3,308|33||913|||
|Zambia, RSZ|502|25|3,286|377|4|1|
|Zimbabwe, NRZ|390|8||195|||
|**Railway concessions**|**350**|**23**|**2,945**|**491**|**5**|**2**|

_Source:_ AICD railways database. _Note:_ Labor productivity = ̳000s traffic units per employee; locomotive productivity = millions of traffic units per locomotive; carriage productivity = ̳000s passenger-km per carriage; wagon productivity = ̳000s net tonne-km per wagon.

There is a high degree of variability in the performance of southern African rail operators. At one end of the spectrum, Spoornet has by far the highest levels of productivity of any railway in Sub-Saharan Africa, in part due to the large coal and mineral volumes that it handles. In a second category come the networks in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique (CDN), Namibia, and Zambia, which perform moderately well on productivity. In a third category come the networks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique (CCFB), and Zimbabwe, which have very poor performance indicators.

As noted above, rail freight faces huge delays while crossing national borders. For example, along the north-south corridor, rail transit times from Lubumbashi to Durban have been reported to be as high as 38 days at an effective velocity of around 4 km per hour. Travel accounted for only 9 days, and interchange and border crossing for the remainder (an astounding 29 days!). The delays can mainly be attributed to the time taken to unload and interchange freight across different locomotives as the cargo passes from one national network to another, as well as lengthy administrative processes at borders. These delays cost as much as $200 per railcar. For railways to be a competitive mode for the movement of freight, issues pertaining to trade facilitation and cross-border coordination need to be tackled (see box 2.1).

Railway operators in southern Africa are often unregulated and have, in some instances, adopted anticompetitive pricing policies. This is in direct contrast to the efficiently organized trucking sector in southern Africa, where direct contracting between shippers and transporters has provided incentives to keep road transport freight prices reasonably competitive (on average, $0.05 per tonne-km for the northsouth corridor). Anticompetitive pricing in the railway sector has been observed in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Particularly noteworthy are the rail freight tariffs charged by the Zambian 25