The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has announced that e-tolls will be shut down for good on 23h59m59s, 11 April 2024.
In a recently-published government gazette, the agency withdrew the toll declaration that designated several major Gauteng roads as “continuous toll roads with electronic points.”
These include:
- N1 Section 20 – From Armadale to Midrand
- N1 Section 21 – From Midrand to the Proefplaas Interchange
- N3 Section 12 – From Old Barn Interchange to the Buccleuch Interchange
- N4 Section 1 – From Koedoespoort to Hans Strydom Drive
- N12 Section 18 – From Diepkloof Interchange to Elands Interchange
- N12 Section 19 – From Gillooly’s Interchange to the Gauteng/Mpumalanga Provincial Border
- R21 Sections 1 and 2 – From Hans Strydom Drive to Rietfontein Interchange
Civil societies such as the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) hail the announcement as a massive win for South African citizens.
“Shutting down the e-toll scheme was a multi-pronged battle fought through courts and official inquiries, across social media, in protest action on the highways, bridges, and outside government offices, in the media and in Parliament,” said Outa.
“But ultimately, it was the stand taken by hundreds of thousands of motorists and business leaders who defied the scheme and refused to pay their e-toll bills, supported by Outa’s promise to defend everyone who was summonsed for non-payment of these bills, which brought the scheme to its knees.”
Crime-fighting tolls
From now on, the e-toll infrastructure will be repurposed for law enforcement instead of collecting funds from motorists, transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga announced in February.
Hence, you will still see the blue lights of the gantries illuminated at night, but the cameras will no longer be used to bill you when driving under them.
While their specific application is still to be revealed, a tender document issued by Sanral in August 2022 indicated that the tolling systems could be employed to detect average speed-over-distance violations.
Several other use cases were also put forward, including tracking vehicle and driver’s licence renewals, weigh in motion enforcement, and data monetization
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