Only one percent of heavy vehicles travelling on the N4 toll route are overloaded, compared with 30% before 1998, the latest issue of Transport World Africa magazine reports.
During this time Trans African Concessions (Trac) has had a R3-billion concession contract to design, construct, rehabilitate, finance, operate, maintain and expand the N4 from west of Witbank to Maputo as a toll road. It also has had the job of constructing five toll plazas.
The report said South African operators were the biggest culprits of overloading, as opposed to trucks arriving in South Africa from Mozambique.
”A total of five percent of local operators tend to overload,” Trac services manager Hannes van Wyk told the magazine.
”Some of these transporters are caught up to 20 times a month at the same weighbridge.”
However, he said that some of these transporters experienced difficulties with load distribution, which meant individual axles took on disproportionate weights and were therefore overloaded.
Overloaded trucks are a significant threat to Trac’s financial model, considering the damage they cause to the road network, the report read.
”The threat is compounded by the fact that the concessionaire expects to see a year-on-year increase in heavy vehicles on the toll route as positive developments continue at the commercial port of Maputo.”
Transport World Africa also reported that within the next six months, a proportion of automotive components imported from the West may use the port and the Maputo development corridor, to Rosslyn in Gauteng.
On the other side of the sub-continent, Walvis Bay in Namibia offers similar incentives for importing automotive components.
However, the lack of a direct rail link from Walvis Bay to Gauteng has neutralised the advantage of saving up to four days in transit times, Barlow Manilal, AIDC logistics manager told the magzine.
He noted that the high volume of trucks using the Trans-Kalahari highway as a result of the lack of a direct railway line was ”not one of the most environmentally-friendly options”. – Sapa