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.