Administrative and management cost of e-tolling

Open Road Toll System Procurement Process 

Tenders for this Project were procured by means of a two phased approach:

1. A prequalification process was used to prequalify potential Main Contractors and suppliers for an Open Road Tolling System, and a National Transaction Clearing House. The prequalification process was concluded in December 2008. Three Main Contractors were pre-qualified for this ORT project, namely:

• The SICE/SANEF Joint Venture, who Tendered as Areye Operating Toll Road Company South Africa (Pty) Ltd, herein after referred to as “Areye”;

• The Electronic Toll Collection Joint Venture (Kapsch Trafficcom and TMT Services) herein after referred to as “ETC JV”; and

• Autostrade per Italia, Intertoll and Q-Free Consortium, who Tendered as Hamba Goli Toll Services Consortium, herein after referred to as “Hamba Goli”

2. A tender process followed the pre-qualification process. In April 2009, the pre-qualified Main Contractors were invited to submit tenders in accordance with the project requirements set for the project. The contract model implemented comprised a Design, Build and Operate (DBO) contract in terms of the FIDIC conditions of contract.

 The components of the tender were:

• Design & Build: The tenderer had to design and implement all equipment, hardware and software requirements for the ORT system in Gauteng

• Operations (toll collection): The operational phase comprised three components namely:

1. ORT roadside, back office, points of presence, systems maintenance and facilities – 8 Years operations

2. Transaction clearing house (TCH) – 5 Years of operations

3. Violation processing centre (VPC) – 5 Years of operations

• Asset Replacement: At the end of the ORT operations (8 years), the contractor must replace components of the toll system that has reached the end of it’s design life.

The tender for the implementation and operations of the Open Road Toll system is similar to the system implementation, operations and maintenance requirements for all other SANRAL toll projects. Accordingly, the toll operator is compensated in accordance with tendered rates for services as required in the contract. For the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), the contract makes provision for a penalty system, in the event that the required services are not provided in accordance with the project requirements.

The tenders received for the above scope of works were as follows:

The above figures are VAT exclusive as well as excluding the estimated total inflation for the work over the approximately 10 year duration of operations for the project. As per the contract model, actual inflation/deflation is applied to tendered rates for each payment certificate. Furthermore, provisional sums such as for banking fees/costs, e-tags, water, electricity, rates and taxes and communication costs are excluded since these aspects of the operations are tendered for separately, or compensated directly to service providers such as municipalities (water, electricity and rates and taxes).

The contract for the toll system implementation and toll operations was awarded to ETC JV (ETC (Pty) Ltd).

Compiled by Marc Corcoran (E-tolling Committee supporter – SAVRALA)