"Why user-pay system trumps fuel levy argument'

The fuel levy is not the silver bullet
many believe it to be when it comes
to paying for road infrastructure,
said Imperial Logistics chief
integration officer, Cobus Rossouw.
While controversial, he said,
Imperial Logistics supports the
user-pay system because it believes
this is the most effective way to
create transport infrastructure.
“We use the infrastructure every
day and we need the government
to create capacity and invest in the
infrastructure, so we would rather
pay for what we use,” he said. “The
fuel levy cannot practically be the
answer to fund new infrastructure
because it does not shape specific
behaviour and more fundamentally,
there is no control over where the
money is going to be spent. We
would be lucky to see it go into
transport infrastructure.”
“In terms of behaviour everything
we do in supply chain logistics
management is about trade-offs
– be it bigger trucks and more
economic loads, or smaller trucks
and smaller deliveries. It is all a
trade-off between cost and risk.”
He said to apply these trade-offs
was the only way to ultimately
shape behaviour.
“We understand that we need
an intermodal shift and that some
cargo belongs on rail, but unless
we push people to change their
behaviour we will not see the
changes we require.”
Acknowledging the court case
brought against the South African
National Road Agency Ltd (Sanral)
by the Opposition Against Urban
Tolling Alliance (Outa) that will
see the entire process of e-tolling
in Gauteng reviewed, including
the method of tariff collection,
Rossouw said it was important
to remove the emotion from the
debate.
“Ultimately the lawyers are going
to decide what to do. That is like
asking an accountant to prescribe
your heart medication and not your
cardiologist. This is not about if
e-tolling is the right thing, but if we
do not have the user-pays system
we will end up in exactly the same
position in terms of congestion and
road user behaviour,” he said.