The South African National Roads Agency's (Sanral's) billing system is failing the public, because the data it is using is flawed, which shows the controversial project will not succeed, says the Opposition of Urban Tolling Alliance, (Outa).
This comes as it hands over more than 1 400 complaints from members of the public to the Public Protector.
In the past five weeks, Outa has received more than 1 600 complaints from members of the public around the controversial system, which went live in Gauteng, in early December. The movement says this augers badly for the system and the errors are a predictor of its failure.
Complaints the alliance have received range from issues with cloned number plates to cars being billed as trucks, says Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage. He says there is a "minefield of billing errors" and shows e-tolling cannot work in SA. "It's a farce."
However, Sanral has downplayed Outa's concerns. Although it failed to respond to several specific questions from ITWeb, the agency has said in a statement that "the numbers of complaints received since toll commencement on 3 December last year until 10 January this year, when compared to the nearly one million accounts which have been registered, are not large. However, there is no room for complacency."
Dirty data
Duvenage says the alliance asked road users to submit complaints to it around five weeks ago, after reports started emerging of incorrect bills. He notes people without tags, who have not driven on Gauteng's roads since e-tolling went live, have been billed.
Other issues include horse and trailer trucks being billed twice, adds Duvenage. He says the system is fraught with problems and Sanral's Violation Processing Centre cannot cope. "The list goes on and on."
Duvenage notes the system is showing cracks and points out that Outa had predicted these issues. "It's a farce."
Outa spokesman John Clarke says: "There are people from Boland to Underberg who are now experiencing the chaos and inaccuracies of billing."
The National Consumer Commission has separately received seven complaints relating to non-delivery of invoices, Sanral's system being down and disputed charges.
Clarke argues the root cause of the billing errors is an issue with Sanral's system, because it is relying on data in the Electronic National Traffic Information System (eNatis). He says Sanral has been afflicted by the maxim "garbage in, garbage out".
The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) previously admitted to issues with the information contained in the database, although it has said this is being cleaned up and errors are often due to people not updating their details.
RTIA COO Thabo Tsholetsane said recently some details have been captured incorrectly, while others have to be updated by motorists. According to documents leaked by the Democratic Alliance last year, only 5% of all fines issued under Administrative Adjudication of Road Offences (Aarto) are paid, because of the pollution in the database.
However, Tsholetsane points out between 80% and 90% of people receive renewals for vehicle licences, even if they have to collect post from where they previously lived. He says this practice is not repeated when it comes to fines.
Clarke says the integrity of eNatis is "weird" and the mistakes being made by Sanral have caused an outrage. He notes the alliance handed over about 2 000 complaints to the public protector, the bulk of which were lodged on Friday, so that it can intervene.
The protector's office did not respond to a request for comment as to how many complaints it has received so far, what it will do to resolve these, and the nature of the issues. Clarke says Outa approached the public protector to force Sanral to face its complainants, pointing out that people are being made to correct Sanral's errors as they must provide proof they have not actually incurred e-toll fees.
To be expected
Sanral has assured the public it is taking the complaints seriously, and apologised to road users who have been inconvenienced. Head of communications Vusi Mona said because e-tolling is new, it would inevitably lead to some teething problems. "When one looks at the volume of tags and passages per day, we would not say the system is falling apart, as some claim."
The complaints mainly stemmed from incorrect data, the misunderstanding around the alternate toll tariff, cloned licence plate numbers, and failure to change ownership details of vehicles which have been sold, said Mona.
All complaints are logged electronically and recorded automatically, said Sanral.
However, Clarke argues Sanral is using technology in a robotic, linear, fashion without any room for human intervention.
Clarke says Sanral is creating the illusion that the system is working. He adds it has had three years to make sure the system works.
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