Motorists in the Kingdom will have to pay a fee when passing road tolls
9 December 2018
| Last updated on 9 December 2018
Following suit its neighbour, the UAE, KSA will soon do the following
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be making some additions to its road system in the next year or two.
It was announced on Thursday, that KSA will introduce road tolls in the country.
The consideration to do so was released by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Transport, Nabil Al-Amoudi, Arabian Business reported.
Saudi Arabia’s neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, has already implemented the toll system on one of its major roads, Sheikh Zayed Road.
And now the Kingdom may do the same in cities in the country as part of a movement to privatize transportation projects in Saudi Arabia.
This new report will see tolls put up in 6 different roads in Riyadh at the beginning of 2020 as a start.
So far, the news of this happening in Saudi Arabia is just a proposition and will be submitted to the high commissioner for approval after the report is finalized.
The addition of new toll roads aren’t the only changes occurring in KSA’s roads – the country will see almost $400 million (valued at 1.5 billion SAR) in road projects in the Eastern region of Saudi Arabia.
Road safety in Saudi Arabia
It was announced back in November, that Saudi Arabia will be also be spending 773 million SAR in road safety measures in the country, stated by the Ministry of Transport.
A total of 8 road safety projects will take place in KSA and will improve the country’s road systems by covering 68,000 km.
Here are some of the road projects that are planned with that budget:
- Establishment of the National Road Safety Center
- 3 traffic safety equipment projects
- 3 rumble strip projects
- New recommendations by the Engineering and Consultancy Services agreement
This project will be able to notify motorists of the road conditions
This projects will identify issues with current roads in KSA – including accidents, traffic control, black spots etc…
These road projects aim to protect and avoid any further harm on KSA streets because a new study revealed that Saudi Arabia has five times higher road traffic deaths than the United Arab Emirates.
While some reasons may be the road safety and roads in the country, other reasons were found to be reckless driving, overladen cars and trucks and animals on the roads such as camels.
Moreover, there have been 195 deaths on Saudi roads last year due to exploding types from overloaded vehicles – police reporting cars carrying up to 10 people, when the car can only handle 4 people at a time.
- Tags:
- road
- tolls
- saudi arabia
