CHANGING TIMES : IN SOUTH AFRICA, THE NATIONAL ROADS AGENCY HAS DRIVEN CHANGES IN THE WAY TOLLS ARE COLLECTED. IN RESPONSE, OPERATORS AND TECHNOLOGY SUPPLIERS HAVE HAD TO CHANGE TOO

This article describes how the National Roads Agency (NRA) in South Africa combated accountability and management problems on its state toll roads by shifting responsibility for operations to toll operators. Before development of the Comprehensive Toll Road Operations and Maintenance (CTROM) contracts, responsibilities were divvied up so that nobody, in effect, had to take responsibility for problems. As a result, a closer relationship has developed between toll system suppliers and the toll operators, which has resulted in improvements in terms of automatic vehicle classification systems video grabbing systems, optical character recognition, and electronic toll collection. The authors note that the rapid growth in traffic has made Electronic Toll Collection a critical requirement.