Surprised motorists were pulled off the road last by armed traffic officers and asked to complete a survey for the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) over several days during the week of 17 March.
Motorists were flagged down by Road Traffic Inspectorate officers at the on-ramp of the N2, just off the M7 to be surveyed and Mikros Traffic Monitoring KZN staff were seen observing traffic near Isipingo, although no drivers were interviewed.
SANRAL defended using armed RTI officers to pull over motorists, saying Tolplan – the service provider conducting the surveys as a service to SANRAL – does not have the authority to stop vehicles on any road and must have the assistance of the traffic police to conduct the survey.
“Whether the traffic police are armed when doing so is within the purview of the traffic authorities and not on request of SANRAL,” said general manager of communications at SANRAL, Vusi Mona.
“This is part of SANRAL’s ongoing planning studies for the continuous improvement of the national road network and also the linkages with the metropolitan and provincial network.”
Mona said motorists had the right to refuse to answer any of the survey questions, which included where they were travelling to and from, the purpose of the trip, how frequently they used the road and even what their monthly household income was.
“Any and all origin and destination surveys must establish origins and destinations for road users, their demographic and the importance of time for those users within in a selected area or region under investigation,” said Mona. “A number of these are done at a certain time over a period of about a week or two, at selected points, such as have been done in eThekwini in previous weeks.
This is part of our research for calibrating transportation and traffic models. All the research is done to aid planners in all spheres of government to plan effectively for the future. Establishing the social and economic profile of users is an essential part of such a survey.”
