Questions have been raised over the accuracy of roadfreight statistics released by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) – with Jan Havenga, logistics professor at Stellenbosch University’s Supply Chain Management Centre, labelling them “embarrassingly” inaccurate.
“Transport operators, fleet owners and transport infrastructure owners do not have a true picture of freight volumes on South Africa’s roads and are thus hampered from creating effective business strategies,” said Havenga.
Responding to Statistics South Africa’s recent announcement that the volume of goods transported in South Africa increased by 5.9% in November 2016 compared with November 2015, Havenga told FTW Online (FTWO): “The release only includes outsourced freight and a large volume – we estimate around 50% or more – of freight in South Africa is not outsourced and is therefore not included in the release.”
He said outsourced transport could be replaced in the market by more in-house transport during a particular year and the stats could thus show a decrease for a year in which there were actually an increase in total transport demand. “Caution must be used when considering any year on year change from the statistics, as the stats are not representative of total transport demand in South Africa.”
Subsequently, said Havenga, only about half the picture is presented and the statistics are inaccurate if quoted as “total transport volume”.
“It is not that StatsSa counted incorrectly, but only outsourced transport is measured. “It is sad that the Department of Transport (DoT) does not provide more complete statistics,” he commented, adding that the he and his research collaborators at the university had been lobbying for this for years.
According to him, DoT had appointed a consultant to look into this a few years ago but that there had been no results released to date. “DoT does have a transport databank but it is grossly incomplete,” Havenga highlighted, pointing out thatIt measures various loose standing elements, but the critical, complete view of South Africa’s logistics environment is not given. And this is in the light of the fact that the comprehensive DoT study ‘Moving South Africa 1998’ pleaded for better statistics. In nearly 20 years precious little had been done.
Accurate statistics are not only crucial to private sector business decisions but could help shape government policies and regulations as well as provide a clearer picture of the need for infrastructure upgrades. In a time where South Africa plans and are in the middle of major infrastructure investments this shortfall is incomprehensible. “Imagine planning for power supply now and in the future if we don’t know how much power is consumed right now, let alone what will be needed in the future?” he asks.
Transnet has in the past commissioned experts (including researchers at Stellenbosch that drives the current modelling and forecasts) for an annual study on land transport freight movements which the logistics parastatal uses to base a number of its expansion plans on. “We therefore know the extent to which the statistics are incomplete,” Havenga said.
The researchers use gravity modelling to determine the demand for freight in South Africa and truck counts at various points to create a more accurate statistical picture of all freight, not only outsourced freight. The number of trucks on the country’s roads, where they move and where each commodity is supplied and demanded are inputs into a Freight Demand Mode – data which belongs to Transnet.
“This includes approaching a large sample of shipping lines to share their container data, contacts with industry to share industrial data and using other databases such as agricultural and mining statistics,” Havenga pointed out.
