The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport (GDoT) yesterday launched the new “Adopt and Protect a Robot” campaign.
The “groundbreaking public-private partnership” seeks to address the ongoing challenges with traffic lights within the province, such as regular outages and theft and vandalism, by transferring partial responsibility for these state assets to local businesses.
“The ‘Adopt and Protect a Robot’ campaign aims to forge a dynamic service delivery-oriented partnership between government, the private sector, and local communities in the fight against traffic congestion, vandalisation of road infrastructure, and lawlessness,” said Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi.
“Through the partnership, the department seeks to ensure that traffic signals work maximally with minimum interruption through alternative power supply by local businesses as well as ensure the safety of the assets on a 24/7 daily routine against any form of vandalism, cable theft, and criminality.”
The GDoT has already switched on traffic signals connected to alternative power supplies along Winnie Mandela Drive, with more to follow soon.
The initiative is similar to the Johannesburg Roads Agency’s Traffic Signal Backup Power Initiative launched in July 2023, which has seen some 37 companies including multi-national corporations like Sasol and Vodacom sign Service Level Agreements to keep the important traffic management systems up and running around the clock.
A positive reception
Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport, Kedibone Diale-Tlabela, told 702 that one of the biggest challenges facing the smooth operation of traffic signals remains theft and vandalism as the related components are valuable on the black market and security around these structures are low.
The primary solutions to this, she said, were to install cameras and get the private sector involved.
“We realised that we continue to fix [traffic signals] but our challenge then becomes theft and vandalism that continues,” said the MEC.
“We needed the private sector to partner with us to help us host this infrastructure.”
Diale-Tlabela said that local government has seen a highly positive reception from businesses to the Adopt and Protect a Robot campaign.
For one, Montecasino has already agreed to move the infrastructure of the adjacent signals onto its premises and provide backup electricity by connecting the signals to its solar-power network.
A host of other businesses have come forward to join the project, too.
“We are happy with the numbers and even today [at the launch of the campaign], there were a lot [of businesses] that came to say we want to come and join and partner with government,” said Diale-Tlabela.
“Businesses are affected when traffic lights are not working and when there’s traffic congestion in the area. It has a huge negative impact on our economy.”
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