A toll road, also known as a turnpike or toll way, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or toll) is assessed for passage. As of some documents, it is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the cost of road construction and maintenance.
Toll roads have existed in some form since antiquity, with tolls levied on passing travelers on foot, wagon, or horseback; but their prominence increased with the rise of the automobile and many modern toll ways charge fees for motor vehicles exclusively. The amount of the toll usually varies by vehicle type, weight, or number of axles, with freight trucks often charged higher rates than cars.
Tolling for road service is a new phenomenon Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise (ETRE) is introducing to Ethiopia. The Addis-Adama Expressway (AAE) is located at the Import-Export corridor of Ethiopia which is the busiest corridor in the country. More high capacity routes will be established along busiest and critical socio-economic corridors by the asset developer, Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA). The Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise (ETRE), as asset manager, is mainly mandated to operate and maintain toll roads. Currently, ETRE provides 24/7 toll road service on AAE to more than 20,000 road users daily. While a reasonable stability is achieved given the circumstances, ETRE is still on a steep learning curve.
Toll road management includes toll transaction management, traffic management, road asset management,environmental management and corporate govern ance aspects. These management fronts shave operational and maintenance works at the core. There are underlying looming risks due to traffic flow increase, growing maintenance need of engineering and technology components, and slimmer down-time tolerance to traffic accident /incident management. Hence, ETRE’s learning curve must supersede the growing traffic and entailed risks.
Regardless of the risks, the benefits of the expressways are multidimensional. Among these are reducing traffic jam that have been encountered on the existing Addis-Adama road, saving time, minimizing fuel cost, lowering traffic accident and facilitating freight and passengers transportation.
According to Abiy Weretaw, deputy manager, Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise, currently, over 24,000 vehicles are using the road per day. Various activities are underway by ETRE in order to modernize the roads service provision capacity and upgrading its magnitude.
The economic impact of the express road is at peak as export trade in particular is conducted through this way efficiently. In line with saving time, it minimizes cost of fuel and other lubricants. It reduces carbon emission and this in turn positively contributes for the green environment.
Abiy believes that the toll road enables the nation’s economy to become competitive by lessening its logistic cost. As a result, investors, manufacturers, importers and exporters will become competitive too.
Income generation is another advantage toll roads provide to the nation and the amount of income is directly linked to the amount of the traffic flow. At the year of launching, in 2015, it raised 96 million Birr and the income has been ever growing up to now. It is expected to collect 280 million Birr during this budget year as of the deputy manager. “We will have the capacity of collecting over 300 million Birr for the coming budget year. Over one billion Birr could be collected since it has been operational, in 2015.”
The other advantage of the toll road is job opportunity for citizens. At the moment, about 500 permanent and 150 temporary workers have been hired in the enterprise. Large amount of jobs are created in other job titles and the total amount of workers are about one thousand, he added.
Regarding carrying out their social responsibility, Abiy said that the tasks they are carrying out in collaboration with the surrounding society can be considered as trustworthy. The community residing the road corridor ever request for various supports. For instance, they are asking for electric and water services. Though the enterprise has limited capacity as it is loan paying, it is striving to carry out certain assignments every year.
Road traffic accident reduction is also among the advantages of the express way. However, as of the deputy manager, traffic accident still remains as a serious problem for the road. Claiming that it is an express road, drivers ride over speed and as a result, horrific accidents have been encountered. Therefore, the road users must be ethical and obey the speed limit; unless, the hazard to occur would be severe, he stressed.
The expressway is equipped with safety facilities such as road dividers and crash protection steel. If an accident happens suddenly, this facility will minimize the harm to occur. However, incase accident happened to a vehicle running over speed, the damage is as hideous as that much. For this reason, careful driving is advisable to any expressway user, he suggested.
Repairing the road is also the duty of the enterprise in addition to its key task of road management. Currently, however, the road is under the quality warranty period and the contractor takes care if any defect is observed. However, after a year, the warranty period will be expired and then mending the roads is transferred to the enterprise. To carry out this task appropriately, the enterprise needs to capacitate itself so that it is preparing mending strategy.
Challenges also encountered while managing the road. Among the problems is drivers’ misbehavior especially personal cars drivers who run out of the speed limit. The enterprise is undertaking control system to tackle the challenge. The other is related to heavy tracks that they enter to the expressway overloaded. Nonetheless, they are not allowed to pass through the toll road since they are assumed cause damage.
Expressway construction and management are the focus areas to be carried out by public and private partnership in the upcoming time. This is considered as a supplementary means to create capacity to the investment. The other benefit of PPP is upgrading road management skill of the enterprise as the private sector may come with a better capacity. Above all, it has the opportunity of magnetizing additional finance to the road network, he added.
Improvements are expected to be operational in the near future. For instance, toll collection will be electronic and speed controlling system will be applied. When Mojo –Hawassa expressway and others are added to the toll road system, the enterprise will own integrated toll collection system, traffic management and other technology outcomes aiming at satisfying clients, he noted.
The Ethiopian Herald May 28 2019
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
