The high-occupancy vehicle lane (HOV) pilot project in October to reduce massive daily traffic congestion between Pretoria and Johannesburg would be conducted ”cautiously and progressively”, the Gauteng department of transport said on Thursday.
Provincial minister Ignatius Jacobs and the South African National Roads Agency were briefing the media in Midrand on a planned dedicated lane for vehicles travelling with three or more people.
The lane will run on the right hand side along the Ben Schoeman Highway from October 23 to 27 initially.
Jacobs said there would be an increased ”roll-out of metro police on the roads” to assist commuters on how to operate the dedicated lane but that their purpose was not to hand out fines.
”There will be a high visibility of police that will assist and work with us,” he said. He added that he was confident it would be a ”smooth” process.
He could not speak for the metro police as to how they planned to enforce and police the use of this lane.
The dedicated lane will stretch from the St Andrews Road offramp on the M1 in Johannesburg to the Brakfontein Interchange on the N1 in Pretoria.
The HOV lane will be used by private and public vehicles carrying three or more people. It will run in a southerly direction at peak times in the morning and a northerly direction at peak times in the afternoon.
From 6am to 9am it will be open to vehicles with three or more passengers travelling in a southerly direction and from 3.30pm to 6.30pm in a northerly direction (St Andrews to Brakfontein).
Park-and-ride facilities in Pretoria and Johannesburg will be announced by the department on its website on Monday.
A new toll system is also to be established on the major Gauteng roads.
”We are going to toll as part of the freeway improvement plan,” said Jacobs.
The department would be engaging the public to debate the issue early next year. The toll system would not operate like the current systems but would be electronic.
Jacobs said all existing tollgates would be replaced with the new electronic system but that he was still going to discuss this with the current operators.
The idea of tolling was not to make money but to maintain and improve the roads, he said. — Sapa