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• Lightstone and Tracker highlight traffic patterns during lockdown.
• Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN show very different patterns.
• The patterns are measured from February to October 2020.
• For more motorsports stories, visit www.Wheels24.co.za
Traffic levels fell dramatically by more than 60% in Gauteng and the Western Cape when the strict lockdown was imposed in April 2020. But a study by Lightstone and Tracker found that traffic levels from certain areas to commercial nodes fell between 10-15% less than traffic in more affluent areas.
The study of traffic levels by Lightstone, the provider of accurate spatial data and analysis in conjunction with Tracker, South Africa’s leading vehicle telematics provider, analyzed aggregated and anonymized data from a significant portion of the more than 1.2 million subscriptions of Tracker in South Africa, to assess the effect the blocking has had on traffic. The dataset provided a broad overview of vehicle stops within designated suburbs in the three provinces from February to November this year.
Traffic levels in Kwazulu-Natal fell about 53% in April, less than in Gauteng and the Western Cape during the same time, and also recovered more quickly in May, rising to 83% from the February benchmark in comparison. with Gauteng (74%) and Western Cape (63%). In October, (see graph below) all three provinces were ahead of the February benchmark.
Traffic patterns
Analysis of traffic patterns confirmed that people from less affluent areas who were less likely to have the ability to work remotely continued to travel more than the other wealth segments throughout the lockdown levels. Travel from wealth segments A and B declined about 60% in April, compared with nearly 75% in wealthy suburbs, and then recovered more quickly to beat the benchmark in October.
Traffic heat maps demonstrate falling traffic levels in April, rapid recovery in May, and then near-normal patterns in November.
In the Western Cape, traffic levels fell to just over 30% from the February benchmark. In the southern suburbs, traffic levels fell below 20%, while patterns remained higher on the Cape Flats, and in some areas they did not decline at all. By May, the Cape Flats was close to normal, while the November heat map shows close to normal activity in the Western Cape, except for the CBD and the nature reserve at Cape Point.
Gauteng has almost fully recovered, with only areas where traffic levels are below the February benchmark.
At KZN, the effect of the air travel ban is most evident in the area around King Shaka Airport, which remains below traffic levels elsewhere that have returned to pre-February levels.
With new restriction levels hitting vacation destinations like Kwazulu-Natal, Garden Route, and the Sarah Baartman district earlier this week, some South Africans are now able to abandon their vacation plans and stay home for the holidays, which will most likely change the historical traffic. patterns for this period.
