The political and socio-economic changes in South Africa overthe past five years have had a significant influence on the SouthAfrican HVS programme. From a fleet of three production machinesoperating solely in South Africa since 1978, only one now remainsin the country, while the other two are used in the CalAPT programmein California. Nevertheless, the SA HVS programme has, in turn,had a marked impact on the development of pavement engineeringtechnology in South Africa and has demonstrably effected significantsavings to the country. In particular, the focus of the programmehas been redirected to address the issues currently facing theSouth African road building industry.

This Paper gives an overview of the history and current statusof the SA HVS programme and highlights the impact of the programmeon both technological advances in pavement engineering and costsavings to the industry.