The popular traffic pointsmen have been deployed again to smooth the flow of traffic.
City of Johannesburg and Traffic Freeflow, a company responsible for the deployment of OUTsurance pointsmen in the city, have finalised a new agreement.
The pointsmen assisted with traffic congestion on Johannesburg’s roads until September 1, 2019, but their service was cancelled by former mayor Herman Mashaba’s administration, despite it being provided at no cost to the city.
The city’s roads have been unmanned at great inconvenience to residents during peak-hour traffic, which, when combined with signal failures for the last 15 months, has led to a great deal of congestion.
Mayor Geoffrey Makhubo’s administration, which took over at the end of 2019, has finalised new agreements with the service providers on the basis that they would be delivered at zero cost to the city and that the hundreds of people who are trained to provide these services would be employed.
The mayor said that, “We are pleased that the JMPD trained 40 of the pointsmen last month, who from January 11 took up duty alongside an additional 60 pointsmen who were part of the programme previously. We urge residents to show the pointsmen courtesy and co-operate with their instructions on our roads. They are there to assist with the smooth flow of traffic and to ensure we are safe on the roads at all times. We are beginning to see fruits in our efforts to normalise the city after the disruption of the last four years,” said Makhubo.
