As part of a performance-based standards (PBS) research programme for heavy vehicles in South Africa, a need was identified to design and operate a number of PBS demonstration vehicles in a pilot project. The purpose of the project is to gain practical experience in the PBS approach and to quantify and evaluate the potential infrastructure preservation, safety and productivity benefits for road freight transport. To date, 450 permits for PBS demonstration vehicles (including 200 car-carriers) have been issued. The pilot project reached the minimum target of 100 million PBS vehicle kilometres in June 2017. The project has shown significant improvements with a reduction in the crash rate of 39% compared with the baseline fleet. Significant financial savings have also been recorded with a weighted average reduction in trips of 28% and an average reduction of 12.2% in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The project has thus far shown the possibility to improve heavy vehicle safety and decrease road freight transport costs by several percentage points. This paper provides an overview of the PBS pilot project including measured benefits based on the monitoring data.