Discussing Egypt’s progress in road quality

CAIRO – 16 November 2019: According to the Global Economy, Egypt jumped 89 places in road quality rankings from the 118th in 2014 to the 29th in 2019.

On a scale from 1 (lowest road quality) to 7 (highest road quality), the World Economic Forum provided data about Egypt’s road status, with average value for Egypt during that period was 3.47 points with a minimum of 2.74 points in 2013 and a maximum of 5.1 points in 2019.

Road traffic accidents rate continued to rise in Egypt until in 2016, when the rate went from 14,710 to 8,480 in 2018. The fatalities caused the by the accidents also declined by 50.5 percent in 2018 reaching 3,087, compared to 6,236 in 2014. This coincided with progress made in Egypt’s national projects to renovate old roads, and construct new road networks in a bid to facilitate mobility, and meet international safety standards.


Part of accomplished roads in national road network project - Filephoto

Since 2014, Egypt has started in constructing 7,000 km as part of the national road network project, where it finalized 4.5 thousand km worth L.E. 75 billion within two phases, said Minister of Transport Kamel el-Wazeer.

Total investments by Transport Ministry in roads and bridges during the period from 2014 to 2018 account to L.E. 32 billion, including the National Road Network project of length 1,100 km, and worth L.E.19 billion.

A total of 1.5 thousand km is under construction as part of the third phase of the national road project, in addition to additional 1.2 thousand km, where the length of the road network is planned to reach 30.5 thousand km.


Part of accomplished roads in national road network project - Filephoto

Calls to adopt a strategy to keep maintenance of the new roads were made by parliamentarians, who demanded the government to adopt international technical standards to preserve the project for its contribution in advancing investment environment and economic growth rates.

Despite progress in many countries, road accidents' deaths continue to rise, with an annual 1.35 million fatalities. Road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of children and young people aged 5-29 years. "This is an unacceptable price to pay for mobility," said World Health Organization.

Emad Nabil, a transport expert and consultant, told Al-Ahram newspaper in April that a major reason behind the decline in accidents’ rate is that cargo vehicles or trucks are separated from private vehicles.


Decade of Action

With Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of deaths and hospitalization in Egypt, the country is one of 10 countries enrolled in a UN program called “Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020,” with a goal to stabilize and then reduce the forecast level of road traffic fatalities around the world by increasing activities conducted at national, regional and global levels.

By the end of this year, Egypt should be evaluating its progress on the decade of action program along with the other nine countries locally, and also internationally as the third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety is set to take place in Sweden in February 2020.


Illustration shows deaths as a result of injury per year exceeding rate of infection with serious diseases. Photo taken from a 2014 report by World Health Organization on Injury prevention.

On the top of a list containing 29 types of incidents resulting in injury in Egypt, traffic crashes are responsible for 53.3 percent of the total. Around 3 percent of the road injuries suffer disability, head of the Central Administration for Critical and Urgent Care (CACUC).
Khaled El-Khateeb said in a previous interview in 2017.

“Unfortunately, victims of traffic injuries are mostly youth,” El-Khateeb said, adding that one of the main long-term projects he seeks to adopt is establishing trauma centers on highways.

By 2030, road traffic injuries are predicted to become the 7th leading cause of death, according WHO.


Causes of death of women and men according to WHO report - WHO statistics 2019

According to a recent WHO overview of world health statistics in 2019, deaths from road traffic injuries are among five indicators that saw stalled progress worldwide.

"Whether we travel as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists or drivers, all of us - as parents, students, employees, volunteers and concerned citizens – can be leaders for road safety. When the right to a safe journey is a priority, everybody wins!," read a May statement by WHO.