Page 23 - Logistics News - March_April 2023

R O A D INF R A S T R UCTUR E
Better infrastructure

and the fate of fleets

By Justin Manson, Sales Director, Webfleet

Government’s most recent pledges to begin the procurement of services in extensive new build and upgrade
of road infrastructure offers a glimmer of hope to businesses in the transport and construction industries.

art of the reality with South Africa’s failing electricity SIP-3, South-Eastern Node and Corridor Development. While
and water systems is that the facilities in place were new roads are very well desired, refurbishment of existing
P not originally designed to serve as large a population infrastructure is also certainly needed and will drastically
as today’s. The roads bear an even greater burden due to improve the safety of passing motorists.
the disrupted rail network provider currently working to
rescue routes and refurbish equipment. This should make In the recently published maiden Webfleet Road Safety
these revamped rail routes more relevant to modern mining, Report, where we surveyed a large sample of fleet operators,
industrial and commercial operations that could benefit from it emerged that 7 percent of accidents are caused by poor road
its potential cost-effectiveness. conditions. If we can bring this down 2-3 percent, we would
save thousands of lives each year.
Over the coming three years, according to the Finance
Ministry’s annual budget published in February, the Government, supported by the private sector and local
government will be spending an estimated R903-billion on communities, must also urgently repair the existing rail
hard infrastructure. Most of this will be focused on strategic infrastructure. Abandoned stations, overgrown gantries and
transport and logistics, and water and sanitation. rusted tracks could all be brought back to life to further ease
congestion and begin the drastic improvement in road surface
Earlier in February, the South African National Roads quality across the nation.
Agency (Sanral) announced that it had awarded four long-
overdue, major construction tenders for projects on the new Fleet owners should be preparing for a massive evolution
N2 Wild Coast highway in the Eastern Cape and the N11 in in South African logistics. They will have to contend with
KwaZulu-Natal. Sanral’s investment creates much-needed more customers upholding stricter contractual conditions,
capacity in the country’s major coastal economies, boosting like large multinationals. Lack of insurance or vehicle
the construction industry while opening a key artery of trade. telematics, for instance, will be a non-starter. Managers and
It forms part of a broader government programme mandated those utilising their service will want to keep an eye on the
to uplift the economic growth of KwaZulu-Natal and the live on-board diagnostics data, which will be relayed back to
Eastern Cape. central command for directors and customers to see the entire
operation in detail, making for quicker and better decisions on
The roads agency states: “The much shorter and quicker live route planning, vehicle health and driver well-being.
N2 route will dramatically reduce traffic carbon emissions,
travel time and costs. The one-and-a-half to three-hour The job now, during the construction of this new
reduction in travel time for light-to-heavy vehicles using the infrastructure, is to collect as much data as we can throughout
current N2 and R61 routes between KZN and EC will result the development, ensuring that live traffic information is
in a projected time cost saving to the economy of R1,5- captured and fed back to road users as close to real-time as
billion per annum. The new route will also open access to the possible. Eventually, through technological refinement, devices
Pondoland region, boosting regional and local socio-economic fitted to monitor vehicle statistics will become so sensitive,
development, particularly in tourism and agriculture.” they will pick up that a vehicle has gone through a pothole.

The 410km N2 Wild Coast Highway, running between the If this can be mapped out, it could expedite local L O GI S T I CS NEWS
N2 Gonubie Interchange and the Mtamvuna River bridge, is government’s maintenance schedule to further improve urban
a key step in government’s Strategic Infrastructure Projects roads, the very heartbeat of the economy. •

www .l o g ist i csn e w s .c o .z a M A RC H/A P R IL 2023 21