National road traffic declines by 7% during festive season – Sanral
'We have only seen a decline of about 7% in traffic volumes compared to the same period last year.'
Photo for illustrative purposes. Twitter/@SANRAL_za
South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) says the country has seen a 7% decline regarding national road traffic during the festive season.
Speaking on CapeTalk, Sanral Engineering Executive Louw Kannemeyer said compared to the previous years, road route patterns were very similar.
Kannemeyer said, however, that precise comparisons to previous years would be made once the festive season concluded.
“The patterns we have on our routes are very similar compared to previous periods based on the relative traffic volumes.
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“If we look at the period from the beginning of November to around 20 December, on average nationally, we have only seen a decline of about 7% in traffic volumes compared to the same period last year. But we do need to compare statistics over a relatively longer period to get the complete picture.”
Kannemeyer noted that patterns could be linked to the later school closing times.
“There has been a 22% reduction in traffic on the Garden Route to date, and on the N1 going from Gauteng to Zimbabwe, we see a 24-27% reduction of traffic in the period as we speak at the moment.”
He further said there have been bigger pattern changes in localised areas, where people can work from home.
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Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula previously announced that an average of 2439 vehicles per hour were recorded on the N1 from Gauteng to Limpopo during the first traffic peak between 18 December and 19 December.
Mbalula revealed that the N3 from Johannesburg to Durban recorded an average of 1547 vehicles per hour.
“Since the start of the festive season, our traffic law enforcement authorities kept a close eye on vehicle movements and transgressions of the rules. A total of 416 roadblocks were conducted from 1 to 20 December, with 634,166 vehicles having been stopped and checked,” he said.
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