On 18 th July this year, the group’s South African company SICE South Africa (Pty) Ltd. organized an open event at the South African Reserve Bank Conference Centre. The purpose was to introduce SICE’s worldwide experience and knowledge in Multi Lane Free Flow ETC tolling to some of the key people in the transport sector in the country, from National and Provincial Authorities to Concessionaires and specialized consultants.
A multinational team of speakers consisting of SICE representatives from Australia, Chile, USA and Spain, complemented by people from SAP and an expert independent consultant, allowed the attendees to gain comprehensive knowledge on the subject of Multi Lane Free Flow.
Guided by SICE’s general manager in South Africa, the speakers introduced the use of MLFF as a tolling solution in worldwide trends for Infrastructure Development, Governmental or Public Private Partnerships (PPP), its efficiency and risks, its components and capabilities, as well as the benefits of using an industry leading company such as SAP for implementing back-office solutions.
The event was complemented with an overview of our experiences in South Africa, where SICE introduced Electronic Toll Collection 5 years ago; in Chile, where SICE has two Multi Lane Free-Flow Toll Collection Systems in operation for more than 2 years and a third one in the earliest stages of the project; and in Australia, where we are implementing a system capable of managing up to 5.4 million transactions per day.
The conclusion that can be derived from the event is that the implementation of MLFF in South Africa through the use of state-of-the-art technology in the tolling arena is possible in the short term.
