Johannesburg - The new dedicated hotline for traffic congestion in the city will see some 640 quick-response officers on the roads, four dedicated call centre staff and teams from all the City of Johannesburg entities such as Johannesburg Water, City Power and Johannesburg Roads Agency.
In addition, the Johannesburg metro police department has identified 304 high-traffic volume points across the city which will be manned by JMPD officers between 6am and 9am and 4pm to 6pm.
Launching the hotline on Thursday, Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said residents and businesses had been complaining for years about spending countless productive hours sitting in traffic - trying to get from one point to another.
“Businesses - particularly small-to-medium enterprises - have singled out our poor traffic system as one of the city’s top challenges inhibiting growth opportunities and business confidence,” the mayor said.
"The new 24-hour traffic hotline is a way for motorists to have their traffic-related complaints swiftly attended to by dedicated operators, supported by a specialised and highly-responsive task teams,” he said.
This, together with the recently-announced recruitment of 1500 additional JMPD officers made possible through an allocation of R31 million in the city’s recent adjustment budget, should make a difference to traffic congestion.
“Once recruited, these JMPD officers will further augment our efforts in tackling traffic congestion,” Mashaba promised.
The city was already implementing other medium-term interventions which would provide motorists with relief and also kick-start the recovery of the transport network, he pointed out.
“In the past week, the city also began another intervention to curb traffic congestion, particularly at key, high-traffic volume intersections which is in the form of the city’s ‘no-join’ policy. This will combat challenges associated with traffic signal downtime at key traffic intersections,” the mayor added.
Up until now, the city has addressed issues of downed traffic lights by joining cables in the event of an electrical fault, causing a weakness in the cables.
Starting with some key intersections, the city will no longer join old cables.
Mashaba added that the traffic hotline would also assist the Johannesburg Road Agency with traffic signals that needed repairs.
The hotline number is 0808723342 or 080traffic and motorists will be asked to register their complaints.