The public rollout of Gauteng’s new number plates could take place as soon as April 2025 following the conclusion of a pilot period on government-owned vehicles.
In November 2024, Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy granted an exemption to vehicles owned by the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) from complying with the provisions of the existing number plate regime.
This was to allow GPG vehicles to legally be equipped with the new plates as part of an assessment period before they are introduced to the public, enabling the authorities to test out the new technologies in a more controlled environment.
The trial is expected to continue for the remainder of the financial year, according to the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport.
In the entity’s 2023/24 report, it said “the piloting of the new number plate system will be undertaken with various identified stakeholders in the next financial year, 2024/25.”
The 2024/25 financial year concludes this March, which would have given the authorities a solid four-and-a-half months of stress-testing.
However, given the fact that the pilot project missed at least one deadline and was introduced approximately seven months after it was supposed to be, it’s likely that the time limit for the public rollout could be surpassed, too.
Should the GPG be dead-set on launching these plates to private vehicles at the start of a financial year to simplify administrative duties, we might only be getting them in April 2026.
What to expect
The new Gauteng number plates aim to fight the prevalence of fraudulent vehicle identifiers, with authorities estimating that in the region of 80% of criminal acts in the nation’s most populous province involve a vehicle that is fitted with falsified number plates.
The new “secure and tamper-proof” plates are thus designed to “prevent cloning, enhance safety, and establish accountability from manufacturers and retailers in the value chain,” said the GPG.
To this end, they feature a scannable QR code directing to an online database of vehicle information, as well as the mark of the producer to to ensure they can be traced back to where they were made.
The plates are now SANS 1116-compliant, too, courtesy of a so-called “self-destructing” decal.
It’s far less dramatic than it sounds, as the decal is simply meant to tear and misform if any attempts are made to remove it so that it can’t be stolen from one vehicle and affixed to another.
Other noteworthy upgrades comprise:
- A national flag in the top-left corner
- The United Nations code for South Africa (ZA)
- A 2mm-thick black divider line situated 60mm from the left edge
- The province name in the top centre
- The provincial emblem between the licence number and “GP” classifiers.
In practice, the pilot plates fitted to GPG-owned vehicles look something like this:
Regarding private vehicles, the new plates will bear the same design hallmarks such as the national flag, “ZA” insignia, provincial name, and QR code.
However, the Gauteng Department of Transport confirmed to TopAuto in September 2023 that the current alphanumeric configuration – e.g. AA 11 AA GP – is not expected to change for private cars until it is exhausted.
“It is estimated the series will last until around 2038,” the entity said.
With this information in hand, our in-house multimedia team created a mock-up of what the new number plates may look like for normal passenger cars:
Loading ...
