Estonian Transport Administration says budget must be doubled and investments made for optimal maintenance of national roads

Estonian Transport Administration says budget must be doubled and investments made for optimal maintenance of national roads
Photo: Transpordiamet

Strategic Planning Division director Martin Lengi says the optimal annual budget for maintaining national roads, based on 2024 prices, is 203 million euros. “That is 31% higher than the last analysis showed,” he noted. “The main reasons for this are the insufficient budget allocated in the period between the two analyses, which has led to some deterioration in the condition of our roads, and the rising cost of repairs. Compared to the 2019 analysis, the roadwork debt we have run up has increased by 12% to 772.4 million euros, which is equal to almost four years of what would be our optimal budget.”

An analysis commissioned by the Transport Administration last year updated the parameters of the vehicles used in the cost-benefit analyses and specified the cost to the road user depending on the flatness of the road surface. An optimal budget range based on roadwork prices in 2024 was then estimated that would ensure the maintenance of the road network in a situation where the costs of the transport system as a whole – i.e. road user and road maintenance costs combined – were minimised over the next 30 years.

The maintenance of national roads includes upkeep, repairs to gravel roads and bridges, resurfacing, restoration and reconstruction.

The analysis also calculated the national road development debt (i.e. the amount needed to bring the road network into compliance with all requirements in sections that are not up to standard) that would be incurred by 2054, which is around 1.5 billion euros. The bulk of this arises from the need to rebuild the TEN-T core network (the Tallinna–Pärnu–Ikla and Tallinna–Tartu–Võru–Luhamaa roads) and the goal of resurfacing gravel roads set out in the Transport and Mobility Development Plan. The plan foresees the resurfacing of all gravel roads with traffic above 50 cars per day.