'Self-repairing roads' may soon solve South Africa’s pothole problem

Aubrey Masango chats with Professor Kim Jenkins of Civil and Pavement Engineering at Stellenbosch University.

Listen below:

Potholes are a headache for motorists and an expensive undertaking by the government.

Could self-repairing roads be in our future?

A team in the UK has invented a self-healing road surface, Sky News reports.

“... there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do it. We’ve just got to get it right.” 

– Professor Kim Jenkins

Potholes are caused by traffic overloading, extreme weather, poor drainage and improper maintenance.

Once a road starts deteriorating, it moves at a rapid pace.

“It’s very difficult when you start falling off the cliff to reverse that and we have too much [truck] overloading in South Africa. It’s something that really needs to be addressed.” 

– Professor Kim Jenkins

“About 70% of tonnage were [carried] by trucks, only 30% by rail. We need to reduce or at least maintain the road network, by using the rail… There needs to be a better ratio.”

– Professor Kim Jenkins

“Self-repairing can’t be seen as a simple fix, it has to have a combination of the right material, the right training, the right infrastructure supporting it.”

 – Professor Kim Jenkins

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the discussion.