Say goodbye to unexpected toll road fees on your next road trip

Cape Town - The festive season is underway and many South African are gearing up to hit the road for their end of year holiday break. 

Wherever you might be headed, best you check out Drive South Africa's first interactive Toll Road Cost Calculator using the Google Maps interface - a useful tool in helping road users better budget for a road trip by calculating a journey’s total toll road costs.

Andre Van Kets, Drive South Africa Co-founder and Marketing Director says South African road users may have saved road travel costs with the recent decrease in the petrol price, but unexpected toll road fees do holiday-makers no favours.

"With the Toll Road Cost Calculator, compulsory toll road fees no longer have to come as a surprise, eating into your precious padkos fund.
 
A much-needed road travel tool - Click here to check it out
“Toll roads are as much a part of South African road trips as padkos and games of ‘eye spy’ with kids in the back seat.

Knowing exactly how much you’re going to be contributing at toll gates before you arrive has never been easy. Websites like SANRAL and AA, as well as others, publish South African toll fees on an annual basis - but none of these sites provide a way of calculating the total cost for a particular trip, says Kets.

So whether you’re heading from Jozi to Durbs (R194.00 through five tolls), Cape Town to Kruger (R256.00 through six tolls), or Pofadder to Pretoria (no tolls), Drive South Africa’s interactive Toll Road Cost Calculator will help you budget just a little bit better before you head off on your next holiday on South Africa’s national roads

How the Toll Road Cost Calculator works



When using the tool, select a vehicle type (tolls differ depending on vehicle), enter a departure and arrival location using the Google Maps interface, and click “Calculate toll fees”.

Toll gate costs are generated as the Toll Road Cost Calculator pulls current rates from a list of South Africa’s 32 GPS-plotted toll gate plazas, which run along the N1, N2, N3, N4, N17 and M6 (Chapmans Peak Drive). The toll gate fees used in the calculations are fed from a database updated with rates from the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL).

It is important to note that database only includes rates from physical toll gate plazas, and not from e-tolls.
 
As an interactive tool, a user has the ability to zoom in and out of the Google Map, giving them the opportunity to view toll gate locations in as much detail as needed.


 
Toll road fees at a glance
 
For an even quicker search on toll gate costs, the Toll Road Cost Calculator displays South Africa’s most popular road travel routes below the interactive tool. A simple click on any of the popular journeys will highlight the route on the map, as well as applicable toll plazas and fees you need to pay.

Additional driving directions function
 
Seeing as the Toll Road Cost Calculator has been built using the Google Maps interface, the tool also has the capability to offer users driving directions between the departure and arrival destinations plotted in the calculator.