RAILWAY SAFETY ACT: MOST SECTIONS IN FORCE FROM 1 AUGUST 2025

RAILWAY SAFETY ACT: MOST SECTIONS IN FORCE FROM 1 AUGUST 2025

• 07 July 2025
• New Legislation
• SA Legal Academy

Most sections of the 2024 Railway Safety Act will come into effect on 1 August 2025, according to a recently gazetted presidential proclamation.

Repealing and replacing the 2002 National Railway Safety Regulator Act, the new piece of legislation nevertheless retains a number of its elements. Among other things, it:

• is expected to address ‘concerns raised over time by operators in respect of the system of railway safety in South Africa’
• endeavours to provide ‘greater clarity on several issues’
• provides ‘a more flexible framework for managing railway safety’
• introduces ‘new concepts’ designed to enhance railway safety by:
  • ‘plac(ing) the emphasis and focus on railway safety’, and
  • recognising the role of operators in ‘managing and implementing safety measures’
• tasks the Railway Safety Regulator with:
  • promoting safety
  • ensuring compliance with safety measures, and
  • providing ‘a framework of safety critical grades’
• provides guidance on the regulator’s governance, and
• in that context seeks to curb and address ‘perceived conflicts of interest’.

This is according to a memorandum on the objects of the Bill concerned, which was tabled in Parliament in March 2021 and eventually passed by both Houses more than three years later.

Sections not in force from 1 August 2025 are:

• 4 (exemptions)
• 34 (safety critical grade framework)
• 35 (evaluation and registration of training institutions)
• 38 (consultative forum)
• 48 (railway ‘occurrences’/incidents)
• 50, 51 and 52 (categories of occurrence investigations)
• 54, 55 and 56 (appeals)
• 62 (regulations on design, construction, alteration and new operations)
• 64 (regulations on assessment and information)
• 65 (regulations on railway occurrences and related investigations)
• 68 (regulations on safety critical grades and training institutions)

Please click the links below for more information:

• proclamation
• Act
• Bill’s ‘B’ version (passed in May 2024)

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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