Radebe proposes 'user pays' principle for heavy cargo hauliers

IF YOU read between the lines of a speech made recently by minister of transport Jeff Radebe to the Coal Haulage Conference in Mpumalanga, you should get a hint of another possible government plan for raising extra cash to fund the rebuilding, upgrading and maintenance of the SA road network. That's in addition to the current proposal to make most of the highways in Gauteng not already tolled into toll roads. The minister directed the first part of his speech to the Mpumalanga members of the audience, and highlighted bulk road transport of coal – the main heavy freight using the province’s road network. He also targeted overloading of these bulk vehicles, using as an example the overloading in the area on the section of the N4 between Pretoria and the SA/ Mozambique border – which, he reckoned, currently stands at 30-35%. “In the network comprising the N4, the R25 and R104,” Radebe said, “the average daily truck traffic is 2 500, which means that about 850 trucks are overloaded on this corridor every day. ”We cannot allow billions of rand investment on the road infrastructure to go to waste because of overloading. All stakeholders need to act as a collective to improve self-regulation – but also to deal with habitual offenders regarding this matter.” Radebe added that his department was fully supportive of the implementation of the road transport management system (RTMS) – previously known as the load accreditation programme (LAP). “The programme targets industries,” he said, “and its value was demonstrated in the timber and sugar industry where overloading was significantly reduced. In the case of coal transport by road, a truck should not be allowed by the mining company to leave the premises of a mine when not legally loaded.” But the overall solution, Radebe added, is going to be defining the roads most commonly used by bulk coal transporters and strengthening them up to take heavy traffic. “The cost to upgrade road structures to a level where they are suitable for mass haul corridors is very high,” he said. “It is therefore important that the required strategic mass haul road network be defined as accurately as possible so that the expensive upgrades can be confined to this network.” The minister goes on to discuss a “user pays” policy – implying that big road user industries, particularly those in bulk transport, could be forking out considerable sums to help sponsor the freight network. What needs to happen, he said, “would be to identify and obtain consensus among stakeholders on a suitable and developmental funding model. “This should be coupled with a degree of the user pay element incorporated to ensure that the coal and other industries responsible for mass transport by road contribute to the reconstruction, rehabilitation and maintenance of the coal/ freight haulage grid.” FTW currently has the minister’s speech before a number of executives of major road transport companies for their comments on the scheme. But we did get one interim comment from Steve Botes, who handles the marketing for MacDonalds, a national transport operator based in Upington. “At first glance, I’d say I don’t think there would be any objection to user pays for infrastructure,” he told FTW. “But it must be balanced – with contributions from ALL the users.” He suggested, however, that it would be very difficult for government to find a suitable measuring tool to assess the “who uses what, and how much” question – and fairly apportion