Easy solution for e-tolls

The Gauteng e-toll gantries are equipped with cameras that can read number plates, so it would be a simple matter to implement a system that keeps track of all vehicles entering and leaving the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project road network. This lends itself to a simple alternative to the use of e-tags and the bewildering array of charges for each gantry, not to mention the strange discounts the South African National Roads Agency tried to implement: when a vehicle enters and passes through its first gantry, the system registers the vehicle’s presence and applies a charge of R5 to the motorist’s account.

The system then merely monitors the vehicle’s continued presence as it passes through other gantries, with no further charges being applied. This persists until the vehicle fails to pass through a subsequent gantry within an expected period of time (i.e. the vehicle has exited the freeway), at which point the system deregisters the presence of the vehicle. Once the vehicle has exited the network, its next entry will again be tolled.

On the basis of 1-million round trips (2 x R5) per day, this amounts to R10m per day, R50m per week, R200m per month and R2.4bn per year, assuming 20 working days per month, ignoring weekends and not taking higher-paying lorries and trucks into account.

Most Gauteng motorists expect they will have to start paying e-tolls sooner or later, and the average motorist would consider a cost of R200plus per month to be acceptable for the use of the improved freeways. Users who make multiple entries per day could be capped at, say, R400 per month. Taxis would continue to enjoy free access, as the backlash from tolling them wouldn’t be worth the effort and they would only pass on the costs to already hard-pressed commuters anyway.

Could this be a more realistic application of the “user pays” principle?

Les Caroto Roodepoort