The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) "war room" has already shown a slight improvement in Metrorail's performance - just a few days after it started operating on Monday.

Transport minister Fikile Mbalula launched the war room last Thursday as part of the department's turnaround strategy to ensure that commuter trains run on time.

The department said on Tuesday that a slight improvement in Metrorail’s performance had already been noted since the war room started operating.

On Monday, 78% of scheduled train trips ran, with 53% of them running on time.

The department said on Tuesday morning that those figures rose to 86% of scheduled train trips running, and 73% of them running on time.

The department added the war room also detected the burning of two train carriages in Cape Town, and the matter was swiftly reacted to, the scene cleared and services recovered within four hours.

“The war room is supported by a technical task team primarily made up of experts with in-depth knowledge and experience in rail operations, signalling, rolling stock, security, business process, engineering and modelling. The job of this war room is to monitor Metrorail’s operations daily and ensure the implementation of turnaround strategies”, transport ministry spokesperson Ayanda Allie Paine said.