INLSA

IN FAVOUR: Dr Roelof Botha conducted a study of freeway e-tolling. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

ANGELIQUE SERRAO

THE GAUTENG e-tolling system will save motorists money in terms of time saved, unlike an increase in the fuel levy, which will cause massive inflation.

This is the view of Dr Roelof Botha, an adjunct professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, who conducted an independent study into the benefits per cost ratio for light passenger vehicles that travel on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. The study was done this month.

Botha said he was worried that putting the e-tolling project on hold or cancelling it altogether would put a stop to future major infrastructure projects in the country, and this had led him to conducting a study into whether the system did hold benefits for car owners. Botha said it was no secret that Gauteng was the most congested province in the country.

His comments seemed to be in line with recent findings by the IBM Commuter Pain Index, which measuring stress experienced in Joburg traffic, that the city was third worst in the world after Beijing and Mexico City.

But in the past year, with only a partially completed highway, stress levels have already dropped.

Botha said one of the major findings in his research was that high-income earners would pay for 94 percent of total toll fees paid. The researcher said this was very different to the idea that tolling would make the poor poorer. He said the figure was based on the assessment that passenger vehicles make up 92 percent of all users of the improved freeway. This figure also proved that food and retail goods would not increase in costs because of tolling.

Botha said his calculations said the electronic tolling had led to a huge time-saving for motorists that would lead to an annual benefit in productivity of R2.1 billion annually. He said this would go into the SA economy, leading to R26.5bn over 20 years and 5 percent inflation, “which is 32 percent higher than the total cost of the project”.

Botha conducted this analysis on the approximately R20bn spent to improve the roads and had not factored in the operating costs of the toll system that The Star has reported on. These costs could be as high as R14bn over eight years.

This cost benefit was far more beneficial than paying for the road infrastructure through the fuel levy as it could increase the petrol price by R1 a litre, causing an increase in inflation.

Botha said he hoped the toll system would go ahead immediately.