Developers plan for the Port of Gauteng and its crucial link to Durban

Issues and challenges surrounding the Durban-Gauteng Corridor will be a point of discussion, especially around the proposed R50 billion Port of Gauteng, during October’s Transport Month.

The Port of Gauteng (PoG) is touted, by developers, as Africa’s superior inland trade gateway, strategically located at the entry and exit point of Gauteng on South Africa’s busiest freight corridor.

The proposed port is expected to provide importers, distributors, rail operators, investors, and developers with a rare, future-ready platform to build world-class warehousing, distribution, and intermodal facilities.

A meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday to release a White Paper: Port of Gauteng’s Solution to South Africa’s Most Important Trade Corridor.

Francois Nortje, Port of Gauteng developer, said the Durban-Gauteng Logistics Corridor had faced significant challenges.

“The National Development Plan of 2012 stated that by 2030, the Durban-Gauteng freight corridor should be a model for how to strengthen and optimise freight corridors. The plan called for a solution by 2030,” he said.

The PoG aim is to: Reduce trucks on the N3 by 30%; Utilise the N3 road and container terminal productively; Slash logistics costs, without adding new taxes on trucks or government subsidies for rail; Create 50,000 permanent jobs.

Nortje stated that historically, 48 trains a day had run through the PoG section of the line, operating at full capacity. He said that south of the PoG, from Glenroy station towards Durban, the line becomes a double track with a capacity for 94 trains a day, although in practice, up to 80 trains were operated from the Port of Durban. However, these numbers were reduced significantly by 2012.

“This rail link was known as the Natcor line. However, despite the growth in container volumes, rail lost competitiveness to the rapidly improving road network.”

Nortje said that rail lost its market share because, between the Port of Durban and the proposed PoG, it took a truck eight hours, while it took rail 21 hours on the same route with challenging terrain.

The South African National Road Agency Limited (Sanral) has invested R28 billion in upgrading the N2 and N3, with completion set for 2028.

Nortje said the Port of Durban handled 2.8 million containers per annum, which is expected to grow by 11.2 million, and without an efficient rail solution, the N3 will not absorb the growth.

In March 2025, Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy launched an online Request for Information (RFI) to develop an enabling environment for private sector participation and enhanced investment in rail and port infrastructure and operations.

The National Department of Transport’s RFI received a total of 162 formal responses, with 51 responses for the iron ore and manganese corridor, 48 responses for the coal and chrome corridor, and 63 responses for the container and automotive intermodal corridor.

Creecy issued the RFI to interested and affected parties for Private Sector Partnership (PSP) projects in the rail and port freight logistics sector. In this initial phase of the PSP process, the RFI focused on the rail corridors.

This included the Intermodal Supply Chain PSP Project focusing on the container and automotive sectors, on the Gauteng-Durban port (KZN), Gauteng-Eastern Cape (East London, Port Elizabeth, Ngqura), and Gauteng-Western Cape (Cape Town) corridors.

Creecy indicated in March 2025 that South Africa’s rail and port infrastructure faced substantial challenges, including declining performance, theft and vandalism, under-investment, and operational inefficiencies.