Nazir Alli, the\u00a0CEO of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral), has admitted that unregistered e-toll users continues to be a challenge for the system.<\/p>\n
Alli told Radio 702 that the company was busy with \u201cironing out the glitches\u201d.<\/p>\n
The glitches, he said, had very little to do with people who had registered for the e-toll system. He said the only real issue that occurs with registered users is the lag when it comes to them topping up their account.<\/p>\n
He said that when customers conducted an EFT transfer, that could take up to five working days.<\/p>\n
Alli said that Sanral would work around this system by manually tracking account payers to ensure that customers do not go into debt.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur major challenge has been in terms of the people who have not registered, whose details are not updated,\u201d the chief executive said.<\/p>\n
Alli said that Sanral is relying on the eNatis (Electronic National Administration Traffic Information System) for the correct vehicle information.<\/p>\n
Opposition To Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) previously warned Sanral that the eNaTiS\u00a0system was flawed.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, we knew there were flaws on third party databases, we also rely on third party databases as well. Just because one particular part of this it (the e-toll system) not correct, doesn\u2019t mean that you mustn\u2019t improve the roads, and get the roads paid for. We need to look at the bigger picture in terms of what was our objective,” Alli said.<\/p>\n
Sanral’s lead said that one of the objectives was to get people out of their private cars onto Gautrain, “and that is exactly what has happened”.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got over a million people who are registered, and there are regularly people who are still registering, especially people who are now recognising that they could be arrested for something they have not been involved in at all,” Alli said.<\/p>\n
He said that Sanral\u2019s target was to collect R200 million per month, with the group collecting in excess of R300 million per month.<\/p>\n
“We don\u2019t believe there is a danger at all for the system,” Alli said when quizzed by the radio host.<\/p>\n
In a report published on Thursday (27 February), Outa contended that\u00a0Gauteng\u2019s public transport infrastructure is currently inadequate to cater as an\u00a0alternative to even a small percentage of the current 2.5 million freeway users.<\/p>\n
According to the Gauteng City Region Observatory, a partnership between the City
\nof Johannesburg and the two universities of Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, only
\n10% of commuters make use of bus and train services whilst 42% make use of the
\ncity\u2019s Minibus Taxi system and 42% use cars.<\/p>\n
Outa noted that, although Gautrain now links 9 stations between the two cities of Pretoria and Johannesburg with OR Tambo International Airport in a narrow North\/South corridor, and serves around 45,000 commuters a day, this is only between 12-15% of the daily road commuter traffic between the two cities\u00a0and less than 3% of the total freeway users.<\/p>\n
It said that, while e-tolling has commenced there has been an expected increase in passengers using the Gautrain, until the rail network expands\u00a0to cater for West and East corridors, and unless the tariffs are reduced to serve a\u00a0larger portion of the population, the Gautrain cannot be regarded as an affordable\u00a0or convenient public transport alternative for the majority of citizens.<\/p>\n
“Moreover the Gautrain is not currently meeting revenue targets to meet its obligations and as another embodiment of the \u201cuser pay principle\u201d appears to be way below the requisite number of users who can pay the fares to make it profitable,” it said.<\/p>\n
Sanral processing 3 million transactions daily<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Sanral addressing Zuma e-toll concerns<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n