The national road network is ready for the festive season load, as traffic volumes are set to increase on all major routes across the country, according to the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (Sanral).
Sanral manages less than 5% of the country’s total road network but carries up to 80% of all long-distance traffic.
The road agency’s spokesperson, Vusi Mona, said the increase in travellers over the festive season means road authorities will deploy significantly more resources to monitor and assist with the safe passage of massive volumes of traffic before and after Christmas.
Mona said high traffic volumes are expected from December 13.
“We appeal to motorists to obey the law, respect all road users – including pedestrians – drive with extreme caution, take a break every two hours or 200km, and avoid driving at night.”
He confirmed that all construction on national roads ended on December 13, saying that most of the key routes around the country would be open and free-flowing.
Also, safety on the country’s national road network is a high priority for Sanral and the South African government.
“Road safety is one of Sanral’s strategic pillars, and while we don’t operate in the law enforcement space, we work with all relevant authorities to improve road safety across the national road network, focusing on engineering, enforcement and education,” said Mona.
Mona said some of the national routes with the most traffic during December include the N2 North Coast (Durban to Tongaat), N2 South Coast (Durban to Winkelspruit), N4 East (Pretoria to Nelspruit), N1 North (Pretoria to Polokwane), N3 South (Johannesburg to Durban), N4 West (Pretoria to Brits), N1 South (Johannesburg to Bloemfontein to Cape Town), and N7 North (Cape Namibia Route)
He said traffic volumes are also expected to be high on the major routes connecting neighbouring states such as Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
He said location marker boards (or blue marker boards) are located every 200m on national routes, adding that these boards contain the name of the route as well as the particular section of the road, the direction of travel and the kilometre distance.
“In case of any incident, please find the closest board and note the details so that the operator at the communication centre can direct a response team to an accurate location. The Freeway Management System (FMS) monitors more than 500km of the busiest freeways across the country, particularly in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. From these multi-modal operations centres, operators can identify an incident and dispatch the relevant response teams in under three minutes,” he said.
He added that emergency numbers are posted on Sanral signage along the national road network, but the 10111 and 10177 numbers can be used for all emergencies.
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