COMCEC Transport and Communications
Outlook 2019
16
Table 6 shows that in OIC countries the proportion of the road network that is a motorway,
highway, main, or national road is almost 12.8% compared to 1.4% for the US, and 6% for the
EU. This finding suggests that the OIC Member States, as a group, are investing more in
developing motorways and highways, and not investing in developing their secondary, regional
and other roads. This focus on developing high-quality and high-volume roads requires large
amounts of capital. Given the limited resources that are available in many OIC Member States,
it is very likely that this focus results in insufficient resources being allocated to maintenance
activities.
Table 5: Percentage of Road Categories in OIC Countries, USA and the EU
Type of Road OIC (%) US (%) EU (%)
Motorways 0.42 1 1
Highways, main, or national 12.4 0.4 5
Secondary or regional 22 28.6 25
Other 65 70 69
Source: COMCEC, Enhancing Road Maintenance in the OIC Member States, 2016.
Figure 6 gives the density (the length of road network divided by the area of the country) of the
road networks in the OIC countries. This figure shows several things. First, there is a large
variation in the density of the road networks in the different OIC countries. Albania, Bahrain,
Bangladesh, Brunei, Comoros, Gambia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives,
Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Turkey, and Uganda have more dense networks compared to the
remaining countries. Actually, Bahrain is among the top 5 countries in the world regarding this
indicator. However, for some countries the low density of the road network reflects the
geography of the country. For example, in Saudi Arabia, a very large part of the country is a
desert with little to no habitation. The density of the road networks in the OIC countries as a
group and individually, is quite low compared to the US and the EU which is not surprising. For
the OIC countries the density of the road network is 0.12 compared to 0.67 and 1.34 for the US
and the EU, respectively.