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Johannesburg - South Africa needed to increase its use of rail freight to boost economic growth and preserve the country's roads, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, on Monday.
"Moving freight from road to rail is a big strategic imperative and state-owned freight logistics group Transnet needs to look at many elements... when considering moving freight from road to rail."
These elements included cost and efficiency, Motlanthe said at the annual convention of the Road Freight Association.
He said the biggest challenge facing South Africa's freight logistics system was the ineffective split between rail and road transport.
In 2010 the division of cargo between road and rail was split 88.8% and 11.2% respectively.
"The ideal situation is that long-haul cargo, such as coal and iron-ore, should exclusively be transported on rail instead of the road networks," Motlanthe said.
The government had emphasised the importance of infrastructure development in its National Development Plan, but road continued to dominate the freight industry.
"It is increasingly clear that our country needs (a) road freight industry (which) is growing in leaps and bounds... to meet our developmental needs."
He said it was unfortunate that coal from the Northern provinces was transported via trucks because there was a lack of rail infrastructure.
"This damages main and arterial roads that were not designed for such heavy-freight movement, which leads to the decreases of the life span of roads significantly and also disrupts the maintenance schedule."
Intermodality, or the ability to move goods between road and rail quickly and efficiently, was a key element that needed to be considered.
Motlanthe described South Africa's freight logistics system as "the heartbeat of economic growth, just as transport is the heartbeat of the economy".
