National roads ready for festive season load: SANRAL

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The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) has announced that the national road network is ready for the festive season load.

The traffic volumes are set to increase on all major routes across the country with the agency adding that the increase in travellers over the festive season means road authorities will deploy significantly more resources.

This is to monitor and assist with the safe passage of massive volumes of traffic, both to holiday destinations before Christmas and on the return journey.

SANRAL spokesperson, Vusi Mona, said they are expecting high traffic volumes from Friday over this long weekend as the festive season gets underway and holidaymakers head for their destinations.

“We appeal to motorists to obey the law, respect all road users – including pedestrians – drive with extreme caution, take a break every two hours or 200km, and avoid driving at night,” he advised.

Mona said safety on the country’s national road network was a high priority for SANRAL and the South African government.

“Road safety is one of SANRAL’s strategic pillars and while the national roads agency does not operate in the law enforcement space, we work with all relevant authorities to improve road safety across the national road network, with a focus on engineering, enforcement and education,” he said.

Mona confirmed that all construction on national roads would end on 13 December, meaning that most of the key routes around the country would be open and free flowing.

SANRAL location marker boards on National roads

He highlighted that routine road maintenance teams would, however, remain on standby during the holiday period to ensure they were able to respond to any incidents.

Mona explained that location marker boards (or blue marker boards) are located every 200m on national routes.

“These boards contain the name of the route, such as N1, N2, N3, N7 and so on, as well as the particular section of the road, the direction of travel and the kilometre distance.

“In case of any incident, please find the closest board and note the details so that the operator at the communication centre is able to direct a response team to an accurate location,” said Mona.

The Freeway Management System (FMS) monitors more than 500km of the busiest freeways across the country, particularly in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

From these multimodal operations centres, operators are able to identify an incident and dispatch the relevant response teams in under three minutes.

Traffic volumes are also expected to be high on the major routes connecting neighbouring states such as Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Mona also urged motorists to enjoy SANRAL’s road safety activities at strategic points along the national road network.

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He continued, “SANRAL is collaborating with other roads authorities and will be hosting several road safety activations. These events promote engagement with motorists when they stop at fuel stations along their journeys. SANRAL will distribute road safety education pamphlets and other goodies.

“We will offer travellers water to stay hydrated and we will also provide entertainment for children. SANRAL’s all year-round road safety campaign, Road Safety One, is centred on every individual taking personal responsibility for road safety, by doing just one thing that could save a life.

“This includes deciding to not drink and drive, using pedestrian facilities to safely cross the road, using the rest and service sites to take regular breaks on long-distance journeys or wearing reflective clothing when walking or cycling at night,” Mona concluded.