What to know about how e-tolling works
Vusi Mona, spokesperson for Sanral, says that motorists will be prosecuted should they not pay their e-toll accounts.
He says that the billing will be according to toll tariffs, which will be advertised on the road signage once the e-tolling commences.
“For now road users can use the Sanral website to estimate how much a trip would cost them, using the online calculator.
“You simply put in the place you are travelling from and your destination, and the calculator works out how much it will cost you,” he says.
He adds that the Sanral Act requires a road user to pay toll when passing a toll point.
“It is a road user’s legal responsibility to pay toll and not paying is, according to the Sanral Act, a criminal offence.”
On the Gauteng e-roads, there are signs at every offramp providing details about the payment of tolls.
“These signs and the toll tariff signs, located along the Gauteng e-roads, before the toll point, indicate that the road user has a seven-day grace period to pay the toll fee applicable to that toll point.”
The billing process will work as follows:
* Although the toll system is a prepaid system, a road user has a seven-day grace period, from a gantry pass, to pay their e-toll transactions.
* If the e-toll transaction is not paid within seven days, it is transferred to the Violations Processing Centre (the section of e-toll operations that deals with overdue toll amounts).
* Due to the user’s status as an Alternative User, discounts (e-tag, frequent user and time of day) are no longer applied and the Alternative Toll Tariff applies. Transactions are rolled up and an invoice is issued to the road user. A road user is then given an opportunity to settle their e-toll transactions, and depending on the time within which the toll transactions are paid, post Grace Period Discounts might apply.
During that time, a debt collection process takes place. Once it appears that the debt collection process is unsuccessful, a Final Demand will be issued, and the issue handed over to the prosecuting authority.
Prosecution will be done in terms of the Criminal Procedures Act, or Aarto, pending when and where it will be implemented.
