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According to the study there are major positives of having the system in place, which will not only benefit individuals but SA as a whole.

Dr Roelof Botha, the independent economist who conducted the study, explained at the results presentation that the tolling system leads to motorists spending less time on the road. This could mean that they are more productive if they use their new-found spare time doing something other than travelling.

In his words: "If a motorist uses just 15% of the spare time that they now have, not travelling, on productive work effort, then there is the potential for the individual to generate R8.84 for every R1 they spend on tolls."

Botha also said that besides the cost benefit situation, a person would also be able to further enrich his or her life as they could use the spare time, which they would have spent normally stuck in traffic, on something that they would prefer to do.

"Apart from the productivity gain if you were to translate some of your time saved into work, you have an enormous amount of time at your disposal now, which you can also utilise for other activities like recreation, sport and spending time with family," Botha said.

When asked about a common complaint that people have that the toll fees are too expensive Botha said that his study showed that when compared with other roads which are tolled in SA, the Gauteng fees do not come close to the other amounts.

Various alternatives to the tolling scheme have been thrown around lately, one of them being an increase in the fuel price, but Botha quickly dismissed this and said that the tolling system was the best way forward for SA.

"In my mind, raising the fuel price is a bad idea for a number of reasons. Firstly it will almost certainly have a regressive impact on the economy, in other words it will make the poor relatively poorer ... and secondly a fuel increase will flow through national treasury and invariably place pressure on fiscal parameters, it may even threaten SA's international credit ratings."

Botha wanted to emphasise one message to the e-tolling prophets of doom at the end of the results presentation. "Go to the trouble of calculating the time that you are likely to save, or probably are already saving, by using the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project as opposed to if it had never occurred, and take that time saving and place a value on it in terms of what you can earn if you were to be productive or how fit you could become if you go to the gym or maybe improving the relationships with the rest of your family and spending more time with them."