The dominant mode of transport in Tanzania is road transport. In the perspective of a relative low number of registered vehicles (512,000 cars and 4-wheeled light vehicles, 86,000 trucks and 49,000 busses in 2014), the death rate in traffic accidents  in Tanzania is decreasing. 1,920 road accidents were recorded from July 2019 to March 2020 compared to 2,593 accidents reported from July 2018 to March 2019. 1,084 people were killed in the accidents from July 2019 to March 2020 compared to 1,216 deaths recorded from July 2018 to March 2019 which was a decrease of 11 percent.y. In addition, there are 809,000 motorised 2- and 3-wheelers and 55,000 other vehicles. (Report for Improvement of Road Safety In Tanzania Mainland, SUMATRA, 2019) 

Ministry of Work, Transport, and Communication

Tanzanian road management falls under the authority of the Ministry of Work, Transport, and Communication, through Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS). The Ministry now consists of three sectors that work in parallel, covering work sector, transport sector and communication sector. All these sectors have head offices at the capital city of Dodoma.

Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS)

TANROADS is an executive agency under the Ministry of Works, Transport, and Communications, and came into operation in July 2000. The Agency is responsible for the maintenance and development of the trunk and regional road network in Tanzania Mainland classified road network. (Road Act, 2007).

Road transport is the most widely used in Tanzania, carrying over 90% of the passengers and 75% of the freight traffic in the country. The road networks in Tanzania include 86,472 km of roads, of which 12,786 km are categorised as trunk roads and 21,105 km as regional roads according to TANROADS.  The remaining 52,581 km is district, urban and feeder roads under the responsibility of Prime Minister’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PMO-RALG).

Road transport in Tanzania faces different problems such as insufficient funds for rehabilitation, upgrading for routine maintenance, high rates of accidents on the roads occur due to poor state of the roads, weak institutional arrangement coordination in the road transport, and high costs of construction of roads and maintenance. (Tanzania Revenue Authority, 2017).

In Tanzania, roads maintenance for both paved and unpaved roads is done through five ways. The first way is called routine and recurrent maintenance and mainly consists of grass cutting, reshape roads and cleaning of sewage system. The second way is called periodic maintenance. The third one is spot improvement and includes rutting and portholes. The fourth and fifth ways cover bridge preventive maintenance and repair and bridge major repair. (TANROADS, 2016)

For more information on government contact details, please see the following link: 4.1 Government Contact List.

Distance Matrix

Source: Tanzania road distance chart in km – TANROADS, 2017

Road Security

National road safety policy, which was put in place in 2001, provides the basis for working towards attaining the vision of a safe traffic environment. It also assists in guiding and coordinating the rules and actions of the relevant Ministries, Agencies and private sector institutions towards the rational use of scarce resources and thereby reducing duplication of effort.

Tanzania’s vision is to have a safe environment for the Road Traffic System, which is in accordance with internationally accepted standards. The policy seeks to guide and unite all stakeholders and put emphasis on cooperation and sharing of knowledge, experience, expertise and resources. The National Road Safety Policy has been developed in accordance with the strategy for the reduction / prevention of accidents:

1. Engineering and Traffic Environment
2. Education and Information
3. Enforcement and Legislation
4. Emergency Response
5. Evaluation and other Comprehensive Actions

In order to ensure safety on the road, the government has implemented a maximum speed limit of 50 km per hours on all highways approaching main towns and villages. This affects the travel time as this speed limited is strictly enforced.

Weighbridges and Axle Load Limits

The regulation which regulates issues of weighbridges and axle load limitations is “The Road Traffic Act, 1973 – The Road Traffic (Maximum Weight of the Vehicles) Regulations, 2001”.

SOURCE: The Road Traffic (Maximum Weight of Vehicles) Regulations, 2001