Road congestion in SA: The true cost of time lost in traffic

How much time do you spend in traffic during your daily commute, and have you been sensing that it's actually getting worse this year?

For people living in major cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg, this is becoming an ever greater problem.

Amo Ramela, 702's morning traffic reporter, says she's certainly noticed traffic congestion increasing in Johannesburg. Among the contributing factors, she cites problems specific to Jozi like ongoing roadworks on many central routes, delays caused by faulty traffic lights and even the prevalence of potholes slowing down motorists.

And CapeTalk host Africa Melane says while Cape Town's roads are generally better maintained than Joburg's, as the popular coastal city's reputation for good school and employment opportunities attracts more semigrants, the city is undeniably becoming overcrowded.

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Stephen Grootes also gets input from Dr Megan Bruwer from Stellenbosch University's transport and logistics department.

Citing statistics from Sanral's freeway network, Bruwer says annual traffic growth rates for Johannesburg are extremely high at almost 5% per year in the last few years.

"There's been an annual growth rate of nearly 5% on the N1 westbound. Normally in traffic we're looking at a growth rate of 2-3%, so you do have a lot more traffic this year than you did last year in January. That said, January and February tend to see higher traffic volumes during these summer months."

There's also the expectation in the country that if you want to be a successful middle class working citizen, you need to own a car, she adds.

As a result they've been seeing a lot of people moving away from public transport for a couple of years already.

"With all of our public transport modes we're not seeing an increase in use at the rate our private vehicle numbers are rising... What we should be seeing is that with business traffic to work there is a much higher shift towards public transport, which is not happening."

The latest international INRIX report on traffic congestion lists Cape Town at number six, with an average 96 hours lost to being stuck in traffic in a year. Joburg ranks 29th with 59 hours lost, with Pretoria at a comparatively low 33 hours in 92nd place.

Counting about 8.6 million drivers in South Africa, transport economist Ofentse Madisha crunches the numbers to quantify the cost of all these lost hours.

As an absolute number, he puts this at around R65 billion lost per year to time spent in traffic.

"If you accumulate that over say, 40 years of a lifetime, that amounts to R2.8 trillion just for commuters."

The cost is far higher if you take into account other factors and players, he says - for instance how delays for transport operators impact the logistics sector.

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