THE Northern Cape is the largest of our country’s nine provinces, comprising 30.5% of South Africa’s land area, with 3 257km of national roads, 4 989km of provincial surfaced roads and 22 746km of provincial gravel roads. It is bordered nationally by the Free State, North West, Eastern Cape and Western Cape, and internationally by Botswana and Namibia. While this province sees fewer fatalities on its roads than other provinces, road safety remains a core priority. So while it is worth noting that there may not be as many fatal crashes on Northern Cape roads, there is still a large number of incidents recorded. In a study conducted between 2014 and 2016, the Northern Cape has recorded in excess of 26 000 incidents. Approximately 800 of those were fatal.
In 2010, the UN declared 2011-2020 the Decade of Action for Road Safety. One of the key pillars of the organisation’s Global Plan is to improve post-crash response. Robust road incident management supports this pillar. The Northern Cape has six Centralised Communication Centres (CCCs) that operate 24 hours a day. Their role is to dispatch all relevant services required at the scene of a traffi c incident. When an incident occurs on the road, a set of coordinated activities is initiated via the CCCs to minimise the primary and secondary effects of the incident, as well as to restore normal road capacity and safety as soon as possible.
A range of different responders are required to converge on incident scenes, from emergency services and police to fi re and traffi c offi cers. In line with SANRAL’s vision to contribute to safer roads, the Road Incident Management System (RIMS) was established to coordinate all responders, making the management of incident scenes more effi cient, safe and successful.
Non-emergency services – which include SANRAL, towing services, spill clean-up teams and specialist services – focus on minimising the impact on other road users by cleaning up and restoring the site quickly.
The distances between towns in the Northern Cape are vast. Should an incident occur that sees a truck lose its load and cause a road to be closed to traffi c, commuters, businesses, and other services are affected for long periods. While such an incident may not be life-threatening, delayed response from emergency services, clean-up crew and road rehabilitation teams can have serious consequences.
SANRAL remains steadfast in its commitment to not only design, fi nance, improve, manage and maintain the national road network, but to also constantly invest in technology and tools that will improve user experience on our roads, with incidents causing as little disruption as possible.