City of Johannesburg Press Statement by The Executive Mayor, Cllr Herman Mashaba
Today, through the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA), the City will start the process of implementing interventions combating the challenge of traffic signal downtime at key traffic intersections throughout Joburg.
This has been made possible through the City’s recent budget adjustment – allocating R6 million to replace cabling at traffic intersections as part of the City’s ‘No Join’ Policy. Up until now, we addressed issues of downed traffic lights by simply joining cables in the event of an electrical fault.
Each ‘join’ in the cabling of a traffic light is an electrical weakness in the circuit that makes it vulnerable to rain, electrical surges and lightening. The ‘no join’ policy launched today serves to reduce the high number of electrical faults over time for the most critical high volume intersections in the City.
Starting with key intersections, JRA technicians will no longer join old cables when an electrical fault is reported at a downed traffic light but replace the damaged cable with one new cable. The City’s ultimate goal is to progressively roll out this no join policy on a city-wide scale beginning in the City’s 2017/2018 financial year
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By doing this, we will make Joburg’s traffic network more resilient to the impact of wet weather conditions, lightning and electrical surges which contribute to signal downtime.
The importance of improving our City’s traffic network cannot be overestimated.
Johannesburg’s 2135 signalised traffic intersections are vital to achieving the City target for 5% economic growth – providing much needed opportunities for our residents. This said, there are a number of other challenges which need to be addressed to improve traffic signal performance in the City.
Other challenges faced by our traffic network can vary from highly complex electrical technical issues, poor quality maintenance, or theft of cables, to accidents at intersections where vehicles crash into the poles, knocking poles over and damaging the cables.
For this reason, we have embarked on implementing the following interventions which will significantly reduce traffic signal downtime:
• the implementation of a “no joint” cable policy at key intersections, to reduce the risk of technical faults resulting from water getting into joints;
• forging closer working relationships with power supply utilities such as City Power and Eskom, to ensure that power is restored quickly when it goes off at traffic signals;
• enhancing the use of a Smart Traffic System, including remote monitoring of the traffic signals, to ensure that faults are detected and repaired quickly by the JRA;
• establish a 24/7 Traffic Operations Centre, to ensure that the condition of the traffic lights can be monitored continuously so that technicians can be dispatched timeously to carry out repairs;
• increased traffic light security systems in our fight against vandalism and theft; and
• Supplying mobile generators to temporarily power to intersections affected by power supply outages. This will alleviate interruptions to traffic signal which contributes 28% of daily traffic signal outages.
To date, weakness in the City transport network and infrastructure is one of the City’s top challenges – strangling our potential for economic growth.
Under my administration, this will become a thing of the past.
We will continue to commit ourselves to effectively utilising our resources to ensure we are create a traffic system which drives the City forward.