• The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport seems to have a plan to address traffic light problems.
• That plan is to ask businesses to take responsibility for traffic lights near them.
• Businesses would need to provide backup power and ensure the traffic light’s safety 24/7.

The rainy season has arrived in Gauteng and that means that traffic lights seem to go out the second a few drops of water hit them. This causes frustration for motorists and costs the provincial government money in repairs and work hours to fix, if the failure of these traffic lights is even addressed at all.

The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport seems to have a plan to address this problem but we suspect it’s going to draw a fair amount of criticism. That plan is called the “Adopt and Protect a Robot Campaign” in which private businesses near traffic lights are invited to look after said traffic lights.

“The Department has recognised the important need and role of private sector institutions in the fight against traffic congestion, vandalism of our road infrastructure, non-functional traffic signals due to load shedding. This private-public partnership in our view will serve as a catalyst to the attainment of socio-economic development goals of the Growing Gauteng Together 2030,” the department wrote in an invitation to the launch of the campaign later this week.

Public-private agreements such as this have been struck before. Both MTN and Vodacom signed agreements with the Johannesburg Roads Agency in 2023 to keep traffic lights in certain areas functional during power outages.

However, this is different and so far, posts about this Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport initiative on social media have drawn criticism with many pointing out that the department is simply pawning its mandate off on private businesses.

You call this an ACHIEVEMENT 😂
Don’t abdicate your responsibility with this fruitless nonsense, the public will NEVER buy into this. Fix Malibongwe Drive in Johannesburg.

— Noel van Breda (@LeisureBoy01) November 18, 2024

Fix all the traffic lights first before we have to adopt them. Cnr Handicap and Hendrik Potgieter have been out for months. Get them fix then we can talk about adoption

— Pia Greve (@PiaGreve1) November 22, 2024

Taking a look at the invitation to the launch of this initiative, the responsibilities a business would take on when adopting a traffic light would be rather large.

A business would need to ensure that the traffic light is working with minimum interruption with alternative power as a backup. In addition, the business would need to make sure that the traffic light was safe 24/7 from vandalism, cable theft and criminality. That’s a lot of responsibility for a business to take on at its own cost with little upside to it, if any. Sure, the business gets the reward of know it’s helping its community but last we checked that’s not really something that makes money.

What makes this sting even more is that in 2022, the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport wrested control of 250 traffic signals from the Johannesburg Roads Agency, showcasing its “commitment to address traffic signal issues on provincial roads in the City[of Johannesburg]”. It seems then that affirmation has evolved into simply asking business owners to assist.

Public-private partnerships can be valuable, especially when it comes to funding the education of youngsters, advancing digitalisation, providing healthcare and more. However, asking the private sector to maintain public infrastructure becomes a rocky road after a while and one has to wonder what other responsibilities the tax receiving provincial government will shirk and push onto businesses in the name of cooperation.

With that having been said, perhaps we’re overly cynical, let’s see how the “Adopt and Protect a Robot Campaign” performs when it launches on Wednesday in Fourways. Maybe the department will notice the traffic light at the Bryanston off-ramp hasn’t worked for months and fix it. Then again, it may just be hoping a business does it instead.