SANRAL stands for the South African National Roads Agency Ltd and they are responsible for the country’s national roads strategy, development and maintenance. They are a State Owned Enterprise – 100% by Government and report to the Minister of Transport.
The Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) is the project name given to the upgrade of the main freeway network of 185 kilometers within Gauteng, surrounding Johannesburg and Tshwane.
An Open Road Tolling gantry is a metal structure with two parallel frames a few meters apart that span the highway in one direction. Several cameras and e-tag readers hang from the gantries which are placed above the free-flowing traffic.
The cameras and readers are able to take pictures of the vehicle passing under the gantry and read any active e-tags in the vehicle. When a vehicle passes under a gantry, its details (e.g.: registration, vehicle model, e-tag number – if active) are sent to the Transaction Clearing House (TCH) for processing.
Bakwena signed a Concession Contract with the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) to construct, manage, maintain and upgrade the N1 and N4 roads on the 4th October 2000, and to date have successfully met and exceeded expectations on the routes. This to ensure the N1 and N4 routes are at a world-class level.
Customers are advised that outside of the GFIP network, they are required to pay at the various toll plazas and not go through the e-toll lanes. If e-toll lanes are used, the toll administration fee will apply to these already expensive toll plaza charges.
Customers will pay the “standard tariff” as per the Government Gazette. Firefly will, however, be adding an administration fee onto the “standard tariff” to enable the recovery of system development costs and also the resources necessary to manage e-toll compliance. Firefly does not apply “capped” toll charges.
Possible delays in e-tolling information from SANRAL could result in charges (if incurred), being billed up to 60 days post-rental.
All the systems are monitored in real-time. In the event an e-toll gantry point passage fails due to a power outage, the backup system takes over while SANRAL service engineers attend to the fault immediately.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to replace the Firefly e-tag in the vehicle with your own personal e-tag as the tag is linked to a specific vehicle. Please remember that the e-tag in the vehicle has no value when removed from the vehicle’s windscreen and, when damaged or removed, a replacement cost of R 600.00 will be levied.
When renting our vehicle you agree to the Firefly rental terms and conditions which include the payment of tolls. Your refusal to pay for the billed toll charges will therefore result in breach of contract and we will take legal action against you for the recovery thereof.
Should you wish to express your opposition to e-tolls while using a Firefly rental vehicle, we would suggest you travel on the alternative roads and thereby avoid paying any e-toll costs to SANRAL.
There will be no increase in our deposit payable at time of vehicle collection, as Firefly bills e-tolls on separate sundry invoices once the rental has been closed. E-toll costs are like a tax that we must collect and pay to SANRAL. They will not influence our rental rates.
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