Important update about Gauteng’s new number plates

The Gauteng Provincial Government has officially launched the pilot of its new licence plate system, which will run for six months before rolling out across the province.

The pilot project will start with the province’s g-Fleet Management vehicles and run for six month, putting the targeted ‘full launch’ at December 2025.

G-FleeT Management is a trading entity of the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport and is a provider of vehicle leasing and fleet management services for the public sector in South Africa.

According to the province, the new plates make use of technological advancements that are aimed at tracking criminal activities, such as vehicle theft, fraud and cloning.

The new system will also assist the government with revenue collection, regulating the roadworthiness of vehicles and insurance.

It will also provide the province with data for planning and policymaking purposes and allow it to better manage the supply chain of plates.

This should create more accountability from manufacturers, particularly when it comes to illicit activity like plate cloning.

“The system is expected to strengthen the vehicle registration and law enforcement landscape, eradicating the use of cloned or fraudulent number plates and facilitating interoperability with SADC systems,” the province said.

At the launch of the pilot at Nasrec, the Gauteng government revealed the design of the new plates as well as the new features.

As previously reported, the new “smart” plates come with embedded QR codes with track and trace features that will be used for identification and registration.

They will also have a ‘tamper-evident’ security decal affixed to them to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures.

The province has dropped the current blue colouring and presence of the Gauteng coat of arms for the standard plates, instead using a default black and white colouring.

However, there are several different colour schemes, depending on the type of vehcile. For example, military vehicles and diplomatic vehicles. The g-Fleet trial will follow the new formatting in red.

Each plate will also feature the South African flag and the UN country code.

Speaking at the launch of the pilot, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said that in addition to the new technology being implemented to combat crime, the new plates were also an opportunity to revise registrations.

He said that the current formatting (AA 11 AA GP) was running out of combinations, similar to the previous format (AAA 111 GP).

The new system is digital, with each registration getting a unique ID. “We said, let’s take advantage of the migration and create a new digital system,” he said.

Regarding pricing, this is not yet clear. Various stakeholders have raised concerns that the migration will costly to road users and fleets—who have to get new plates and pay for registration.

Groups like Outa have warned that if it proves to be too expensive, many national fleets would opt to register outside the province, actually costing it revenue.

During the unveiling, MEC for transport Kedibone Diale-Tlabela explained some of the new security features and how they would help prevent instances of bribery and corruption.

She implied that the new features and benefits outweighed the cost.

“This is a great idea, please get your new numbers plates. Don’t ask me about the price, just go and do it,” she said.