The Road Traffic Management Corporation’s (RTMC) online booking service for driver’s licence card renewals has been operating for over two years, but is still only available in two out of the nine provinces in South Africa.
The RTMC added the ability to make appointments for driver’s licences on the eNatis website back in February 2022 with a plan to bring this service to the entire country.
However, as of May 2024, it is still exclusive to residents in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape – which only accounts for roughly 37% (22.7 million) of the country’s 61.4 million residents.
Access to convenience
In September 2022, RTMC spokesperson Simon Zwane explained that the licence booking process is available to all provinces, but that the decision to support it was the prerogative of each region’s transport MEC.
“So far, Gauteng and Eastern Cape provincial departments of transports are the only ones that have taken the decision to introduce the services in their province,” he said.
Fast forward to 2024 and this is still the case as the other seven provinces have yet to introduce the online service.
MyBroadband recently contacted the other provinces’ transport departments to find out why this is the case, though only the Western Cape (WC) responded.
Transport and public works spokesperson Jandré Bakker told the publication that the WC has thus far opted to not implement the service because of the “many challenges” it has faced in Gauteng.
The province only recently received a report on the experiences of the Gauteng service, which must still be reviewed by department officials, he explained.
Based on the WC’s own experiences, a walk-in approach was found to be more effective than an appointment-based system at resolving the driver’s licence card backlog that occurred at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The online service will eventually be implemented in the province, but the current projection is that it will only go live between 2025 and 2026.
A key reason for this delay is that the WC Department of Transport only wants to launch the online service once it has introduced its smart enrollment machines, which are scheduled for implementation during the 2024-2025 financial year.
The department did not elaborate on why it would not adopt the booking system before these machines are rolled out, as is the case with Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
A successful service
The eNatis booking service has seen issues since its introduction, including a lack of available slots and technical difficulties leading to the site going down.
However, the process has generally received positive feedback from users, citing a faster and easier process compared to past experiences.
The service still requires that individuals visit a driving licence testing centre (DLTC) in person to submit data, perform an eye test and pay their fees, but the allocated slots mean there is a limit to the daily attendees which eliminates the long queues associated with licence renewals.
A Smart DLTC branch in Eco Park, Centurion.
A member of the TopAuto staff recently visited one of the “Smart DLTCs” in Centurion and described the process as “in and out in a flash.”
Today there are plenty of available slots, which can be attributed to a variety of factors.
The RTMC is slowly catching up on its backlog, and the smart enrollment system pulls a client’s information directly from home affairs which cuts down on a lot of admin.
Certain DLTCs have also expanded their operating hours as late as 21h00, creating new slots for individuals at a time that doesn’t clash with their other activities.
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