The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Department of Transport (DoT) is in the final stages of preparation for the launch of new vehicle number plates for the province, which is scheduled to commence on Friday, the 1st of December.
The new plates are intended to address an issue with the province’s style of number plates, as several towns in KZN have run out of new numbers to use.
Phased rollout
The new licence plates will be introduced in phases, with the first term running from 1 December 2023 through to 28 February 2024.
During this time, the province will address the registration of new motor vehicles, the re-registration of vehicles to new owners, and vehicles that have been stolen and recovered and need to be re-licensed to a new owner.
Phase two will then run from 1 March 2024 and will allow all vehicle owners to migrate from the current system to the new one.
For the first 24 months after March 1st, the migration process will be voluntary, but once this period expires in March 2026 it will become mandatory for all outstanding vehicle owners.
Reason for the change
The DoT said that the main reason for the new plates is that several towns in KwaZulu-Natal have run out of numbers to use.
KZN – as well as the Western Cape – currently use a system with various codes to indicate where a vehicle is registered, with a few notable KZN examples being ND for Durban, NPN for Pinetown, NPS for Port Shepstone, NRB for Richards Bay, and PMB for Pietermaritzburg.
Under the new system, the province will no longer use these codes but will instead employ a continuous numbering system with all new plates simply using a “ZN” suffix.
“The new numbering for the province will be easy to align with the national intentions to develop a new numbering system for the country,” said KZN MEC Transport, Sipho Hlomuka, earlier this year.
The incoming plates also provide an opportunity to upgrade their security in order to better counter criminal activities such as counterfeiting.
KwaZulu-Natal’s current licence code system for various towns.
The provincial DoT has tested its eNatis (Electronic National Administration Traffic Information) system in preparation for the new plates and has confirmed that the system is now able to activate the new numbering system, which has been approved by the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
In finalizing the process, the department said that the final gazette should be published on 30 November 2023, having received input from various stakeholders this month.
The provincial Motor Licensing Bureau and Road Traffic Information units will also attend a workshop on Tuesday, 28 November to brief them about the changes to the system and its requirements.
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