Business Unity South Africa (BUSA 2011) recently discussed
the poor state of South African roads and the impact it has
on the logistics costs of firms. It stated that the poor state of
roads could be attributed to:
• the increased number of heavy freight vehicles,
• the over-loading of these vehicles,
• insufficient funds allocated for road maintenance,
• the poor quality of road construction and
• transport operators using provincial roads not equipped
for heavy vehicles in order to avoid toll fees.
The growth in the number of road freight vehicles is illustrated
by the electronic national administration traffic information
system’s (eNatis) vehicle count reports. Figure 3 shows the
increase in the number of vehicles on South African roads
between 2007 and 2011. Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Mass
(GVM) of less than 3500 kg are illustrated on the primary axis
and vehicles with a GVM of more than 3500 kg are illustrated
on the secondary axis (eNatis 2007–2012).