A study of the effect of user fee in road maintenance: the case of Dar es Salaam and coast religion

The essence of this study was to explore how user fee effect and road maintenance as an efficient, effective and sustainable system in the Tanzania context. The study covered two regions of Tanzania main land namely Dar es salaam an. Information’s and views from road users and road authority were collected using questionnaires, interviews and physical from road users and road authority were collected using questionnaires, interviews and physical observation and narrative stories. As well data were analysed using Microsoft excel and presented using maps, tables and figures, content analysis was employed to realize whether or not the money collected will curb maintenance backlog. Findings from this study revealed that there is a wide gap between maintenance needs and the actual amount of money collected will curb is backlog. Findings in this study revealed that there is a wide gap between maintenance needs and the actual amount of money collected to the Road Fund Boards despite that the fact that, donors contributed 40 percentage for maintenance work. This situation results to backlog maintenance hence poor road condition result to backlog maintenance hence poor road condition. However, this is not always the case; other factors contributed to this situation include limited sources of road funds, inefficient control of weighbridge and incapacity of local contractors. The study also recognizes that, there is always poor road condition due to backlog maintenance, whereas user fee contributes about 60% of the total contributions which cover only 40% of the maintenance needs However, this study recognizes some sources of Road Fund which do not suffice the maintenance needs but requires an improvement. Another issue stressed is overloading which directly damage roads hence effect the effort of road maintenance