Assessing the impact of road tolling on Entebbe Expressway towards its road maintenance

Abstract

The condition of Uganda’s roads has been declining over the years due to insufficient maintenance and rehabilitation. Year by year budget allocations have been unfavorably with the funding considered inadequate to maintain highway networks and conduct modest construction works. Road infrastructure shortcomings have manifested themselves in form of high vehicle operating costs, rampant potholes, leading to a decline in road safety and a deterioration of service levels for those who use roads to deliver goods. Over the years, there has been a backlog in the funding provided for maintenance compared to the budget required that is over 50% of the maintenance funds required is not provided for example in FY2019/20 only UGX 282.17bn was provided out of UGX 596bn required. There has been also imbalance in sharing the road budget where the road development takes the biggest share of the budget of 91% while road maintenance takes only 7% of the total budget. This imbalance is resulting in unstainable development of the network. There is therefore a need to create sustainable sources which can effectively reduce this backlog and create an independent source of funds for the road maintenance hence the research about the effectiveness of the road tolling towards this problem. Road tolling is the levying of an amount of money from the road users that use a certain road and this was introduced at Entebbe Expressway on 8th January, 2022. This research assesses the implementation of the road tolling system and its performance outcomes. The road tolling however is proving to be effective given that about UGX 2.93bn is collected monthly and this can help fund most of maintenance activities done on the Entebbe expressway like clearing the vegetation, washing and cleaning the road surface and drainage system repair. This research was basically done to find out the revenue collected at Entebbe expressway and this was done by analyzing the data attained by the tolling agency (Egis) on the number of vehicles and the amount they pay to use the expressway. The research was also aimed at finding the degree of relevance of the road tolling towards its road maintenance budget and it was found out that road tolling raises enough money that can do the most common maintenance activities at the for example washing and cleaning the road surface, vegetation clearance and drainage repair.