Response regarding progress with traffic signals

JOHANNESBURG – Faulty signals will never be eradicated, but the JRA is going a very long way towards achieving this through:

• Conducting a benchmarking exercise against Durban and the City of Cape Town, by visiting their facilities and interrogating which areas are being managed differently, in particular:

* Reduce the attractiveness of copper cables to vandals, either by using fewer cores or using an alternative material to copper.

* Improve identification of stolen equipment for evidence in court.

* Review Traffic Signals Depot structure to include more staff for signal fault repair and proactive maintenance.

• Improve earthing for traffic signals where existing lighting protection measures are not adequate (and are causing flashing signals).

• Implementing a Remote Monitoring System for early detection and reporting of signal faults and hence quicker response and repair.

• Mitigating the extent of vandalism and theft through establishing an Infrastructure Protection Unit.

• Reducing the human error factor in repairing signal faults (with JRA productivity drive and a ‘Right-First-Time’ initiative which is underway).

• Addressing the poor inspection of traffic signals and pro-active, routine maintenance by technicians, through the same ‘Right-First-Time’ initiative.

• Liaising directly with controller equipment manufactures to understand component flaws which could cause flashing signals.

• On average about 70 traffic signals are damaged per month through motor vehicle accidents. These then require construction teams to affect the repairs, which is generally a much longer process than repairing faulty components.

• Power outages are the faults with by far the longest repair times, since they require the involvement of City Power or Eskom. JRA is finalising SLAs with these entities to streamline this fault repair process.

• Mitigating faults from aging equipment through:

A controller upgrade programme, which will be ongoing to keep the controller age below 15 years.

Old power cable replacement programme, which will be ongoing to keep the cable age below 50 years.