Want to know who’ll be operating the Gautrain

the bombela operating company, which will operate and maintain the gautrain, aims at an annual turnover of about r380m.

the company will employ 400 and will manage sub-contractors for maintenance, cleaning, security and bus operation.

the company will also be running the bus service from the different stations.

at the helm is french woman, laurence le blanc who is chief executive of the bombela operating company.

as the chief executive of the bombela operating company, she will be operating the gautrain for 15 years as from 2010.

in a brief discussion with moneyweb at a press conference at the gautrain marlboro station construction site, le blanc said that there would be 24 trains in all, each with four carriages.

and each four cars would accommodate 450 passengers. with 135 000 passengers transported a day.

le blanc’s experience spans over ten years at ratp, a transport company in paris.

she gained extensive experience in bus and railway operations.

she has participated in several major projects internationally, including the channel tunnel rail link project in london, where she was the control and communication lead engineer. she was also involved in a major railway station renewal project for the paris underground.

just to go back to ratp, the company has been designing, building and operating urban and suburban public transport networks in paris and the surrounding area for 100 years.

ratp developpement, which is directly linked to the gautrain, was founded in 2002 to operate transport networks outside the ratp’s traditional sphere of activity. ratp owns 75% of it.

ratp developpement is 75% owned by ratp, and the rest is owned by transdev which is a major international multi-modal transport group based in paris, france.

it has operations in france, the uk, australia, portugal and italy.

the gautrain construction phase will last 54 months - 48 months to build the connection between johannesburg airport and pretoria, then six months to finish the last extensions of the network to johannesburg in the south and hatfield in the north.

ratp developpement was selected because of its experience as a multi-modal operator and its ability to train operating staff, according to its website.

some 10m people are moved every day by ratp in france in their integrated bus, train and metro network.

the bombela operating company will be running the gautrain for 15 years, after which the contract expires and the province will then decide who will continue running the rail link.

gautrain project manager jack van der merwe said that recent rains haven’t been much of a problem and that once the tunneling starts in february, it would not affect the project at all.

construction has started at all six sites.

van der merwe said that the first trains would be delivered in two years. four carriages will be assembled in derby, and 92 will be assembled by south african union carriage and wagon.