Cost effectiveness in rural road maintenance: A comparative analysis of alternative technologies in Tanzania

The current position of agriculture as the mainstay of the economy providing livelihood to 90.0 percent of the Tanzanian populace and accounting for 54.0 percent of foreign exchange earnings; The designated role of agriculture in both the recovery and subsequent growth of the Tanzanian economy. The dislocation between agricultural areas and market outlets as well as courses of off-farm inputs; and The role road transport plays in bridging the dislocation by handling 60.0-70.0 percent of the agricultural produce. It is imperative that roads to and from the farming centers are made to provide reliable all rements stand at magnitude that are beyond what the Tanzanian resource base can provide weather motor able accessibility. Furthermore, trucking on such roads has to be cost effective. All these, require that among others, regular and adequate maintenance be carried out on such roads. In contrast however, the road network in Tanzania has been receiving inadequate maintenance thus hampering economy in transport operations. Furthermore, quite often some agricultural potential areas have been denied of all weather motor able accessibility. The rehabilitation and subsequent maintenance requirements stand at magnitudes that are beyond what the Tanzanian resource base can provide in the short run. Thus, together with efforts to solicit external assistance, there is need to carry out road maintenance with efficient utilization of the meager resources made available resources has to be encouraged given the foreign exchange constraint facing Tanzania. It is with this spirit that this study endeavored to study the relative cost effectiveness of labour based road maintenance as compared to machine based methods using the direct method of comparison on RRM Tanga gravelling performance, it has been found that labour based methods are most cost effective compared to machine based ones, both in financial and economic terms. Labour based methods are cheaper by 4.7 and 22.5 percent both in financial and economic terms respectively. Labour based methods have further been found to be responsive by 44.0 and 36.0 percent to changes in equipment and labour costs respectively. In contrast, Machine based methods have been found to be 50.0 and 7.0 percent responsive to changes in equipment and labour costs. It also has been found that for both technologies there is potential for productivity improvement.