Pretoria - The Gauteng Provincial Government has organised a series of summits as part of the provincial Transport Month campaign.
The announcement was made by Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport, Ismail Vadi, at the launch of the Provincial Transport Month campaign in Johannesburg on Thursday.
“Later this month, we will host a Freight Indaba and I hope that of the many issues we will discuss there, we will revisit the matter of the contribution of the private sector in developing the City Deep Complex.
“We will host a number of activities during the month that will highlight the significance of this campaign.
“The planned activities include inspections of weighbridges to promote the importance of compliance and prevent overloading in the freight industry; and the launching of non-motorised pedestrian and cycle lanes in various municipalities,” he said.
Without announcing the venues of the gatherings, MEC Vadi said a three-day Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) conference will take place from 14-16 October, followed by the Women in Transport Summit on October 16. The last conference will be the Freight Indaba on October 20.
Gauteng’s Transport Month themed “Transport, Moving the Economy Forward, will be primarily focusing on road freight and the rail transport segments as contributors to economic development.
The MEC also announced that his department, the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), Transnet and the City of Johannesburg have invested in the development of City Deep Terminal.
“Together with the City of Johannesburg, we are investing R121 million in the road improvements that span seven interrelated projects, which include the widening of Rosherville Road; the construction of the Cleveland Road bridge; the construction of ramps onto the N17, and extensions to Houer Road and Vickers Road.
“Already, the conversion of Rosherville Road into a one-way road has been completed.
“City Deep is prioritised for improvements and upgrading so that it can better handle increased demand before it reaches its full capacity over the next few years,” MEC Vadi said.
The terminal, which is the largest inland port in the country, handles 84 percent of all container freight on the Reef.
Transnet is investing over R2.7 billion on upgrading the terminal itself, while rubber tyre gantries have been introduced in this terminal and a modern inland container terminal has been developed with an operational capacity of 400 000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) per annum.
For Transnet, the City Deep development is critical to achieve volume growth before the development of “super terminals”.
He said the Kascon Terminal will be upgraded to 200 000 TEUs by 2016. The upgrading of the road network is aimed specifically at improving access and mobility in and around the City Deep Terminal.
“It is hoped that these improvements will provide the opportunity to retain and to establish new light industrial development and office parks around these terminals.
“This will further create the opportunity for retailers to build and retain their distribution centres at the freight terminals from where final distribution will take place,” he said. - SAnews.gov.za
