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The role and characteristics of private (not for reward) road transport operators

in the South African freight market

NL Bierman

2006

Statistics on private road freight transportation services (not for reward) (defined as: "A business's own vehicle

that are used to transport its own products to its own customers") are very limited in South Africa. Statistics

South Africa's (SSA) research focuses on road freight carriers for reward and excludes the data on private (not forreward) carriers. The CSIR in 2004 published a report entitled Second Annual state of Logistics Survey for South

Africa. The focus of this study was on land freight transport, i.e. road and rail. Maritime, air and pipeline volumes

were not included in this study's scope. Therefore, the number of studies investigating the private (not for

reward) road freight market and even the total freight market in South Africa is limited to the above-mentioned

two sources and the Rand Afrikaans University's (RAU) 1991-study (published in 1993), entitled Freight transport

Survey.

This study has aimed at helping to fill the gap in available information on road freight transport in South Africa by

looking at, among other things, the following:

• The magnitude of the private (not for reward) road transport market

• The products being transported 

• The vehicles used, the business types, the annual turnover of these businesses, etc.

• The 2004-model split for the South African freight transport market

Information on the private (not for reward) road freight market in South Africa was obtained on a sectoral basis

by means of a literature analysis and empirical research.

The research results showed the following:

• The total freight transport market for South Africa was approximately 846 million tons during 2004. This

figure implies an increase of approximately 208 million tons from roughly 638 million tons transported during

1991.

• Private (not for reward) road transport made up 60.4% of the total volumes for 2004. In 1991 this percentage

was 58.1%

• Outsourced (for reward) road transport accounted for 24.7% of the total volumes for 2004, an increase from

24.5% in 1991

• Hired road transport remained constant at 2.9% of total volumes

• Rail transport has lost market share as well as actual tonnages. In 1991 rail transport was responsible for

14.2% of total volumes and in 2004, rail transported only 9.8% of all freight (these figures exclude the

dedicated tonnages transported by COALlink and OREX)

• Pipeline volumes has grown significantly in volumes from 0.17% in 1991 to 1.7% in 2004 

• Air freight tonnages represent 0.004% of the total freight transported during 2004• Coastal volumes increased from 0.07% in 1991 to 0.5% in 2004 

Compared to international modal split examples, the South African road freight modal split shows similarities

with the USA, UK, the European Union, Ireland, Germany and Japan.

Some of the major findings from the study are highlighted below:

• The number of vehicles per province was cross-tabulated with the Gross Domestic Product by Region (GDPR).

It was found that the province with the highest number of vehicles (Gauteng) was also the province with the

highest GDPR, and the province with the lowest number of vehicles (Northern Cape) was also the province

with the lowest GDPR during 2003

• Result of the annual turnover of the business taking part in the survey were cross-tabulated with the numberof vehicles they have in operation and the results showed that a larger business with a higher turnover

generally has more vehicles in operation than a business with a turnover of R10 million or less. The opposite

is also true, where businesses with an annual turnover of less than R10 million have mostly fewer than three

vehicles in full-time operation.

7/29/2019 The Role and Characteristics of Private Road Transport Operators in the South African Freight Market NL BIERMAN

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 This study highlighted the fact that transport research pertaining to the private (not for reward) freight transport

market in South Africa lacks in-depth regular research despite being a major contributor to the movement of 

freight in South Africa.