Midrand – Transport Minister Dipuo Peters says the Gauteng Freeway Management System, from which e-tolling will be enforced, is ready to go live on 3 December.
Speaking to journalists at the SA National Road Agency’s Central Operations Centre, Peters said e-tolling was just one aspect of the overall system, which she said would help enforce safety for motorists on the province’s freeway.
Peters on Sunday conducted a site visit to the operations centre to assess the system’s overall readiness.
“With tolling on the Gauteng e-roads set to commence on the 3rd of December, it is important to note that the system has been up and running for over 18 months.
“During this period, Sanral has had the time to test the system in a live environment, albeit without any transactions or billing taking place.
“But billing is just one important component of the system,” she said.
The full system, Peters said, includes high definition cameras and Sanral’s On-Road Services, amongst others. The On-Road Services come with emergency medical responses in the event of an incident; towing services and constant monitoring of traffic flow on the Gauteng Freeway Network.
“Services are decentralised at strategic positions across the network to allow for rapid response to incidents. Services are operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
“In the past year, units responsible for implementing these services have responded to over 4 000 incidents. These incidents include crashes, stranded vehicles, breakdowns and medical assistance,” Peters said.
The minister said it was services such as these that have saved the lives of many motorists, who were able to get assistance within an hour of an incident happening.
She said the project had also been a good job driver, with some 1 300 employees – most of them young people – now working at the centre in Midrand.
Peters also said that those that register for e-tolling will qualify for a 48% discount on tolling tariffs.
Sanral CEO Nazir Alli, who was also at the site visit, said the last time he checked, just over 700 000 motorists had registered for e-tolls, and said 100 000 of these bought tags in a month after the toll tariffs were gazetted.
He urged motorists to register for e-tolling, and said those that do not comply and defy paying for e-tolls would be breaking the law, and would be subjected to debt-collecting processes. – SAnews.gov.za
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