Cape Town - Major accidents that block freeways for several hours can cost everyone involved up to R20 million combined. The South African National Roads Agency said a recent accident on the N1, that led to the road being closed for 11 hours, from 10am to 9pm, could have cost as much as R18.4 million.
Randall Cable, engineering manager for Sanral’s western region, said the cost was calculated by considering the delays in terms of travel time and fuel costs.
In this instance, Sanral estimated the travel time delay to be about 106 000 vehicle hours at 1.23 people a car, at a cost of R85 an hour. This came to about R11m.
The cost of fuel for the idling and diverted cars, at R2.25 a litre/a vehicle/hour added another R2.4m to the cost.
A further R5m was included for damage to property, the clean-up operation and traffic services.
The accident was recorded by one of Sanral’s 240 CCTV cameras that form part of the integrated Freeway Management System.
The system, which covers 155km of freeway along the N1, N2, N7 and trunk route in Somerset West, relays real-time surveillance footage to the Goodwood Traffic Management Centre, and a secondary centre at Sanral’s Bellville office. The system is managed by Sanral with the city and provincial traffic authorities.
“When something happens, we can follow it from point to point.”
The system also deals with the information boards which alert motorists to traffic problems and road safety campaigns.
Information is fed to the i-traffic.co.za website which has real-time information about the state of the roads in Cape Town, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Information was also put on Twitter via #CapeTownFreeway
Cable said up to 90 percent of all traffic incidents, as well as vandalism and other transgressions, were picked up by the operators monitoring the cameras.
Sanral invested R150 million in the system which was launched in Cape Town in 2010. This included the installation of the fibre optic network, as well as the software needed for the system to operate.
“I believe the system has already paid for itself,” said Cable. The information made it possible for operators to respond to incidents within three minutes, and the data collected enabled Sanral to identify high-risk sections of the route.
Cape Argus