TransJamaican Highway, operators of Jamaica’s Highway 2000 road network, is reporting a 15 per cent drop in traffic for the year 2020.
 
This is due in the main to the impact of the COVID-19 virus and the contraction of the economy with many people working from home and the imposition of government curfews.

A release issued to stakeholders read: “For the full year 2020, a total of 20.6 million toll transactions were recorded (56,268/day) down 14.8 per cent compared to 2019 (24.2 million).

This drop in traffic is not as concerning as earlier anticipated and TransJamaican may well  see a recovery in the second quarter of 2021 when a greater effort to open up the economy may take place.

Last April, rating agency Fitch did forecast a fall of 20 per cent in traffic in 2020 yet still affirmed TransJamaican Highway’s “stable outlook”. Last year saw the company looking to raise J$11.2 billion from an initial public offering, with eight billion shares being put up for sale.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2020, TransJamaican Highway registered a net loss of US$4.5 million on revenues of US$8.5 million.

A closer look at the East-West leg of the highway reveals that for the fourth quarter 2020, the fall in toll transaction compared to the same period in the prior year was 10.2 per cent and similar to that of the third quarter of 2020 (-10 per cent).

TransJamaican Highway explained: “This result was mainly due to the much improved levels of traffic observed in December 2020 (-3.1 per cent compared to December 2019) while October and November (respectively -16.3 per cent and  -11.8 per cent) were further affected by the continued closure of schools and the additional measures put in place after the general elections which included tightening of the curfew hours and reintroduction of the “ work from home” order issued by the Government for non-essential workers”.

When the Government first put in measures to fight the COVID-19 virus in April it led to a drop in traffic of 34.5 per cent over last year.

Over the just-concluded Christmas season there was a peak in traffic with 90,000 transactions on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2020.