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Pretoria - Gauteng's new roads saved commuters money and they were now being asked to pay for the project through e-tolls, an academic said on Thursday.
"People have got used to lower costs of travel, three years of lower costs of travelling, and now they're being asked to pay for it," University of Cape Town Graduate Business School economist Barry Standish said in Pretoria.
Standish was addressing the e-tolls review panel appointed by Gauteng premier David Makhura in July to examine the economic and social impact of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and the e-tolling system to fund it.
The money commuters had saved since the first phase of the GFIP was completed in 2011 had gone elsewhere, as fuel prices had increased, for example.
Standish said e-tolling and the GFIP were one of the most economically efficient systems he had seen, as it gave "out of pocket" savings to users.
A motorist driving from Soweto to Isando, on the East Rand, in morning peak traffic would save R19.54 in petrol and vehicle wear-and-tear, and spend 14 minutes less time on the road.
The cost of the journey for a car fitted with an e-tag would be R8.64, resulting in an overall saving of R10.90.
According to Sanral's research, between R29.5bn and R29.7bn was spent on the GFIP's first phase, consumers had saved R248bn since 2011.
Standish said the costs of e-tolls were small in relation to Gauteng's gross domestic product and household disposable income.
When looking at disposable income for households, for every R100 earned, e-tolls would cost only 25 cents if saving were taken into account.
The impact on food prices, when taking savings into account, would see a minimal impact of four to 17 cents, for a delivery for example from Pretoria to Isando on the East Rand.
