Traffic light disaster in Joburg

A major challenge the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) faces regarding keeping its traffic lights running at the city’s intersections is a lack of law enforcement to combat cable thieves and opportunists tampering with lights to control traffic.

Speaking to 702, JRA operations manager Sipho Nhlapo said the issue of traffic lights constantly being off in Johannesburg relates to law enforcement, rather than service delivery.

“The biggest problem we are facing as the government is theft, people who are vandalising the traffic lights,” said Nhlapo.

“Firstly, the vandalism was people stealing cable. This is affecting Eskom and City Power, who supply energy to these traffic lights.”

However, the JRA has now set its sights on people tampering with traffic lights to direct traffic, and some who have been caught have landed long prison sentences.

“The second one that we’re beginning to look at is where the traffic lights are working because there’s no load-shedding now, people tampering with the system so that they can control traffic,” he said.

“These are more enforcement issues than service delivery issues.”

The JRA has been working with the private sector to address the problem. Nhlapo noted that private security companies working with community forums have been a big help.

“In certain areas, we’ve seen where communities through private security have arrested people who were tampering and our team will then come identify and take these people to the courts,” he said.

“We have seen people being sentenced to 20 years about a month ago, the other one for 18 years for tampering with infrastructure.”

He said some private companies had come to the rescue, allowing the JRA to connect some of its intersections to their buildings’ backup power and use their surveillance to monitor them.

“The advantage with that is some of these companies have cameras that can watch the traffic lights. They also have private security companies that go around their facilities to check,” said Nhlapo.

He added that while more eyes on traffic lights have resulted in a slight reduction in tampering incidents, the city must do more to address the problem.

Vodacom and MTN are two companies assisting the JRA in letting it use their buildings’ backup power to keep their traffic lights on.

In July 2023, the JRA and Vodacom launched an initiative to power traffic lights near the mobile operator’s Midrand campus using backup power from the mobile operator’s buildings.

It is currently evaluating whether it is viable to use the backup power at its radio sites to power lights at more intersections.

“Vodacom is assessing the viability of powering up traffic lights within the proximity to its radio sites,” a Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband.

“The City of Johannesburg has provided a list of priority areas where feasibility is being investigated.”

Vodacom South Africa CEO Sitho Mdlalose said the initiative would help motorists save time spent in traffic.

“Motorists in the area can spend an unnecessarily extended amount of time stuck in traffic because of non-functioning traffic lights in the area,” said Mdlalose.

“When people are running late, this hinders their productivity, which, in turn, negatively affects our economy.”

MTN launched a similar plan in July 2023 to tackle load-shedding traffic in Soweto. The mobile operator says its base stations will power nearby traffic lights.

However, its plans have hit a snag, and the project has yet to be completed due to theft and vandalism in the area. Despite this, it plans to expand the initiative to more regions.

“MTN is in the process of completing the Soweto traffic lights initiatives, which was initially delayed due to issues relating to theft and vandalism,” said MTN SA.

“The initiative will see MTN supplying backup power to traffic lights close to its base stations to help alleviate congestion during load-shedding.”

It also plans to create a traffic corridor from Roodepoort’s Flora Clinic to ease congestion on and off the highway from 14th Avenue, where MTN’s head office is located.