Frequently asked questions

No, not yet. PRASA ai is an independent project built by System Sol, a Cape Town-based team of commuters. We use PRASA's published timetables and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to PRASA, Metrorail, or any government entity. We would like to work with PRASA to make it official.

Open prasaai.co.za/app on your phone and tap Add to your phone. On Android it's one tap (or Add to Home screen in Chrome's menu). On iPhone, open it in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. There's no Play Store and no sign-up. The How to use page has the steps.

PRASA's commuter trains (Metrorail) in Cape Town, Gauteng (Johannesburg and Pretoria), Durban and East London: every line PRASA publishes a timetable for. You choose your region the first time you open the app, and can change it any time.

The app is free. Adding it takes under 250 KB, the app and your region's timetable together. After that it works offline, with no signal and no data, and only checks for timetable updates when you're online.

No. PRASA doesn't publish live train positions, so the app shows PRASA's published, scheduled times. Where it shows a train moving along the line, that's an estimate from the timetable. Trains can be late or cancelled, so check PRASA's alerts before you go.

From PRASA's published timetables, credited on every page. Each region shows the date PRASA last updated its timetables. Outside Cape Town that was several months ago, so times may have changed.

PRASA publishes no Sunday timetables, and some lines have no Saturday timetable either. The app and the station pages tell you when that's the case, and show the next day with trains.

Yes. PRASA (the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) runs the commuter trains that used to be called Metrorail. Many people still call them Metrorail. It's the same trains, lines and stations, and the times on this site are PRASA's published timetables.

PRASA's live service alerts for every Cape Town line are on prasaai.co.za/cape-town/status, read from PRASA's feed. On weekdays and Saturdays trains run to PRASA's published timetable; there is no Sunday timetable. Gauteng, Durban and East London have their own status pages.

On weekdays the first train leaves Cape Town station at 03:00 and the last at 19:15; on Saturdays from 03:25 to 16:25, according to PRASA's published timetable. Every station page shows that station's own first and last trains in each direction.

Yes, on the Southern Line. PRASA's weekday timetable has 13 direct trains from Cape Town to Simon's Town, from 05:45 to 18:15. On Saturdays most Simon's Town trains run from Fish Hoek (10), with 2 direct from Cape Town. Check the alerts before you go.

About 54 minutes on the Southern Line, by PRASA's weekday timetable. The Muizenberg to Cape Town page lists every direct train both ways, with its departure and arrival times.

PRASA ai doesn't show fares yet, because PRASA hasn't published a fare table we can check. Fares go by distance zone and you buy tickets at the station ticket office. PRASA said in July 2025 that off-peak trips (weekdays 09:00 to 14:00) are cheaper. Ask at the ticket office for your trip.

We're phasing it out, and it may not reply. The free app replaces it: it covers all four regions, works offline and is where new features go.

Nothing that identifies you: no sign-up, no phone number, no name. Your region and saved trips stay on your phone. To clear them, clear the app's site data or remove it from your home screen. If you used the WhatsApp bot, send "delete my data" there, or email info@prasaai.co.za.

The app is in English for now, and Afrikaans and isiXhosa are planned. The WhatsApp bot understands English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa.