By Durrant Pate

Transjamaican Highway Limited, which operates the Highway 2000 East-West wing of Jamaica’s toll roads, has just released its annual report for 2019 showing that last year was its best year in terms of traffic and revenue.

The company recorded revenues of US$53.28 million and profits of US$8.3 million to round off a good 2019. Company Chairman Charles Paradis reports that over 24 million vehicles utilised the toll road, which is a continuation of the performance experienced over the last six years with total volume of vehicles growing at a 4.9 per cent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between 2014-2019.

In his message to shareholders in the annual report, Paradis explains that this positive trend was expected to continue in 2020, as the Jamaican toll road company experienced growth of 1.5 per cent in January 2020 and 2.8 per cent the following month of February when compared to the same period of 2019.

“This all changed with the arrival of the COVID-19 global pandemic in mid-March 2020,” the TJH chairman explained.

CONTAINMENT MEASURES RELATED TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

As of March 13, 2020, the Government of Jamaica ordered all schools closed as part of its efforts toward the containment of the spread of COVID-19. This had an immediate knock on effect of a reduction in traffic on the East-West highway. Subsequently, increased measures to contain the virus were taken, regarding the implementation of islandwide curfews and imposition of quarantine for the parish of St. Catherine.

This resulted in reduction of 52 per cent in traffic in April when compared with April 2019. As the number of new cases in the island slowed, and the quarantine was lifted on May 1, TJH recorded an improvement in the traffic reduction to 34 per cent in May 2020, and then further improvement to 17 per cent in June 2020.

This was followed by single-digit reductions in July and August 2020, both reporting nine per cent and seven per cent respectively when compared to the previous year. The month of September 2020 saw an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and the announcement that Jamaica was now experiencing the community spread phase of the virus.

Along with this announcement came a tightening of the measures put in place by the GOJ to include earlier curfew hours, which contributed to the 14 per cent decrease in traffic compared to prior year. Given this situation TJH have not revised its financial projections for the rest of this year because of the unpredictability of the measures that may be taken relating to COVID-19.

Future development opportunities

Paradis points to the fact that during this difficult period, TJH was forced to analyse its business operation, pointing to a number of development opportunities available to TJH on which the company intend to execute once this health crisis is over. According to the TJH chairman, “whether in Jamaica, where many road projects are about to see the light of day, or elsewhere in the Caribbean, the experience acquired by the TJH team will enable us to position ourselves as a leading player in the realisation of major infrastructure projects, concerned with sustainable development and serving the progress and well-being of the population.”

TJH is the concessionaire of the Highway 2000 East-West since 2001, Jamaica’s first toll road and the largest infrastructure project in the English-speaking Caribbean. Its core business activity is the development, operation and maintenance of a tolled road network in Jamaica known as the “Highway 2000 East-West”, a 49.9km tolled motorway with two distinct corridors: T1 – 43.45km between Kingston and May Pen, and T2 – 6.5km between Portmore and Kingston.

The company operates four toll plazas, located at May Pen, Vineyards in Old Harbour, Spanish Town and Portmore.