Sanral, the state-owned agency in charge of the now-defunct Gauteng e-toll programme, has advised road users to make use of their e-toll tags – and the high throughput Shesha lanes at toll plazas – to make toll payments when travelling around South Africa.

“The use of e-tags at toll plazas across the country remains the smartest payment method for road users,” said Vusi Mona, GM for communications and marketing at Sanral, in a statement.

“Following a recent article in which toll plazas were linked to card cloning and skimming as well as other credit card fraud, we want to reiterate that these acts do not happen at our toll plazas. Instead, stolen or cloned cards are sometimes presented for payment,” said Mona.

Shesha lanes allow for faster turnaround times for motorists going through toll plazas because they make use of e-tags to facilitate payments, eliminating the need for vehicles to come to a complete stop and for motorists to present their bank card while engaging with an operator.

At a media briefing to mark the closing of the Gauteng e-toll programme in April, Louw Kannemeyer, engineering executive at Sanral, said the department of transport and Sanral were considering additional use cases for e-tags such as paying for parking or using the associated mobility account in other parts of the public transport system.

“The e-tag is a payment instrument and it remains effective and operational countrywide,” said Kannemeyer. “There are additional things you can do with them, like opting in for paying for parking. We have already demonstrated interoperability with the mobility account in Johannesburg where a person can go from a BRT (bus) onto Metrorail (train) and onto Prasa (train) with just one ticket. That will unlock major benefits for the daily public transport user.”