Toll Roads in Central and Eastern Europe: Promises and Performance

In the early nineties, after the collapse of the communist system, many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries hoped to expand their motorway network by offering concessions to private companies to finance, build and operate toll roads. Both the lack of public resources and the aim of increasing the role of private sector in the economy were behind that policy. In the nearly two decades since, roughly one‐third of the motorways built in CEE have been private concessions. But far fewer such motorways were built than expected, and many of those that were built were financed largely by payments from the government rather than by toll revenues. Moreover, all the toll roads are concentrated in three countries—Hungary, Poland and Croatia. This paper examines the history of toll road projects in those countries and the reasons of the gap between the expected outcomes and the actual results, which vary across countries.