CITY OF TSHWANE
Moving the City of Tshwane towards zero emissions Electric vehicles (EVs) can reduce congestion and air pollution in South Africa’s capital city. To make that happen, though, EVs need to be more affordable and accessible. By Ivan Reutener
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very morning, around 200 000 people living in Pretoria wake up, get dressed, and drive to work alone1. On average, they’ll spend about an hour in traffic2, travelling at a snail’s pace of around 26 km/h3. Collectively, these 200 000 slow-moving single-occupant vehicles – all of them internal combustion engines (ICEs) – emit 790 tonnes of CO2 emissions one way4. Then, when it’s home time, they do it all over again. To offset the environmental impact, we’d need to plant 1 580 trees around the city – every day. And this doesn’t take into account the tailpipe emissions from the other 660 000 registered ICE vehicles in the city5. As the capital of South Africa, Pretoria is home to various foreign embassies, high commissions, consulates, and some 1.4 million households. It’s unlikely that we’ll convince people to travel less, but if there were a mass shift to EVs, the public and private sectors could work together to make it easier to move around the city, while radically reducing tailpipe emissions, enhancing quality of life,
Ivan Reutener, Pr Tech Eng, leading professional: Smart Mobility, Royal HaskoningDHV
and boosting the economy. However, there are a few policy, technology, and business obstacles that South Africa would first need to overcome in the shift to smart mobility.
The beginning of the end of traffic Granted, replacing ICE vehicles with EVs won’t make a difference to congestion and travel time during peak periods. However, it’s a significant step towards fully autonomous transport, when EVs will be easily accessible and affordable to all through digital mobility solutions. This would encourage ride-sharing and reduce the number of single-occupant vehicles – and therefore congestion – on the roads. Encouraging residents to walk and cycle more, by allocating bigger public spaces to pedestrians in car-free areas and providing green corridors with dedicated walkways and cycling infrastructure is another way to reduce congestion.
Fast-track climate targets It’s not just commuters that benefit in an
EV-friendly city. As signatory to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group6, the City of Tshwane has taken the pledge to collaborate, share knowledge and drive meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change. The stated goal in the City’s Climate Response Strategy7 is to reduce emissions and improve air quality. An EV adoption strategy that starts with converting the City’s fleet to EVs and eventually rolls out to include public transport and taxis will enable the City to meet targets to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another focus area should be on making EVs more affordable to the general public through incentives, subsidies and reduced import tax.
Rich man’s toy The general public is more likely to choose an EV as their next vehicle if there were compelling incentives to do so – and if they were more affordable. However, this is not the case in South Africa. Electric vehicles are generally regarded as ‘rich men’s toys’ – and for good reason. Unlike
Vehicle-to-vehicle connections will facilitate communication between autonomous vehicles and synchronise travel patterns so that traffic signals – and traffic as we know it today – will be obsolete
