Over the past two years the sugar industry has been actively pursuing a system of selfregulation in addressing the issue of vehicle overloading...

Over the past two years the sugar industry has been actively pursuing a system of selfregulation in addressing the issue of vehicle overloading...

In 2007, the South African sugar industry adopted a proactive stance to self regulating the
overloading of vehicles, with the express objective of ultimately adopting the SABS approved
standards for hauliers, consignees and consignors. This industry-wide initiative is known as
the Road Transport Management System (RTMS). With the exception of one mill, all South
African sugar mills are participating in the overload strategy of this programme. There has
been much progress over the past two years, with all participating mill areas showing a year
on year reduction in overloading.

However, despite this improvement, some of the participants felt that the decrease in
overloading came at the expense of increased underloading and reduced average payload,
which translates into increased transport costs. To address these concerns, an extensive
exercise, using the Sugar Logistics Improvement Programme (SLIP), was undertaken to
determine whether this self-regulation initiative was indeed having a negative effect on
underloading and payloads.