One company waves goodbye to potholes in South Africa’s richest city

To address the significant issue of potholes in South Africa, Discovery launched its Pothole Patrol initiative in 2021, which utilises private-sector skills, technology, and data to repair the roads.

This project was launched in partnership with the City of Johannesburg and Dial Direct (later replaced by Avis) with the goal of eliminating the city’s potholes, which were estimated to number around 100,000.

However, since its launch, the Pothole Patrol has repaired over 320,000 potholes in Johannesburg, showing the severity of the problem.

According to Adrian Gore, Discovery CEO, when the project was launched, potholes were costing the country an estimated R650 million annually.

Adding to this was an increasing number of claims being made to the company‘s Discovery Insure business relating to pothole-caused damage.

Gore also noted in Discovery’s 2025 financial results presentation that this issue presented the company with an excellent opportunity to implement its shared-value model in the real world.

Repairing potholes would benefit Discovery’s short-term insurance business by reducing claims, as well as improving the lives of South African drivers.

He also highlighted that the initiative would benefit Discovery’s competition.

“When we launched the pothole initiative back in 2021, it was to solve an obvious and widespread problem that affected not only our clients, but other insurers and broader society,” said Gore. 

“Potholes were causing frustration, damage, and a sense that the economic hub of the country was in serious and irreparable decline.” 

In a recent social media post, Gore additionally shared that the initiative had managed to repair a total of 42 kilometres worth of potholes in Johannesburg.

This figure is not surprising, as Johannesburg’s roads are infamous for their poor condition and the danger they present to motorists.

The impact of weather, high traffic volumes, and a lack of maintenance has ensured that the problem has only worsened.

Repairing potholes is therefore an essential step for insurers to take to reduce claim rates.

Since the launch of the Pothole Patrol initiative, Discovery has seen a 26% decrease in claim frequency, highlighting the effectiveness of the strategy.

Repairing potholes

One of the major issues with Johannesburg’s roads is the poor quality of the repairs done to fix potholes, which usually don’t last longer than a few days in summer weather.

Additionally, some repair work presents a new risk to drivers with large humps on parts of the road.

Discovery aimed to resolve these issues and create solutions that would endure and not be washed away by the first rains.

“Upon investigation, we realised that one of the major issues was that patched potholes did not stay fixed for long,” Gore said. 

To solve this, Discovery began by sourcing the necessary skills and equipment to fix the potholes, while leveraging its extensive data capabilities to aid the repair process further.

“We used our data capabilities to integrate citizen reporting and our own data to identify the most severe potholes requiring urgent action,” he said.

“We developed an app that enabled the public to report potholes, using geolocation technology to capture the exact location of the pothole and track already-reported potholes.”

Discovery has already built a reputation for the efficiency of its data systems, and when the initiative was launched, it had over 14 billion kilometres’ worth of telematics data it could utilise.

Thanks to this approach, Gore noted that less than 0.2% of repaired potholes required further attention.