There are now nearly 7,4-million vehicles on South Africa’s roads, with the most acute congestion in Gauteng, where there were nearly 2,9-million vehicles as at the end of March this year, according to the Provincial Budgets and Expenditure Review.
Commenting on the document — tabled at Parliament on Tuesday — Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said the roads and transport section of the review ”makes very interesting reading”.
There was about 7Â 500km of road in Gauteng. If one considers that each vehicle was on average 2,5m long and if every vehicle is placed nose-to-nose they would cover 12Â 300 km.
He noted that 600Â 000 vehicles were added last year to South African roads, which totalled 335Â 491km of provincial roads. About 300Â 000 of the new vehicles were in Gauteng.
The document notes that the potential utilisation of roads is an important indicator of future spending requirements. The rate of utilisation determines the extent and timing of road maintenance. ”Over-utilisation also results in traffic congestion,” says the report.
The report noted that the Ben Schoeman highway between Johannesburg and Tshwane/Pretoria carried 155Â 000 vehicles a day. Peak hour flows of 700 vehicles per hour prevailed in both directions between 5am and 9am
Consideration was being given to a toll road strategy whereby concessionaires would build new freeways and the Gautrain rail link was also aimed at relieving traffic congestion along the Ben Schoeman, the report said. – I-Net Bridge