East-West Highway Corridor Improvement

The development objectives of the East-West Highway Corridor Improvement Project for Georgia are to: (i) reduce road user costs along the East-West highway corridor section upgraded under the project; and (ii) strengthen the capacity of the roads department and the ministry of economy and sustainable development to respectively manage the road network and provide an enabling environment to improve logistics services. The project comprises of four components. The first component, improvement and asset management of the East-West highway corridor consists of following two sub-components: (i) civil works; and (ii) construction supervision and quality assurance services. The second component, institutional strengthening aim to strengthen the capacity of road department’s (RD’s) intelligent transport systems (ITS) unit in setting up and managing ITS systems applications to improve traffic control and road safety, and timely communication with road users along the East-West highway corridor, and RD’s monitoring unit to assess and inform the general public and beneficiaries about the impacts of improving the East West highway corridor. It consists of following two sub-components: (i) ITS capacity strengthening; and (ii) technical support to Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development (MESD) to develop and implement a logistics strategy. The third component, project management support will finance the mobilization of relevant technical expertise (that is, project management; bridge, tunnel, and geotechnical engineering) to support RD and foreign projects unit (FPU) management during project implementation. This component will also contribute to building the technical capacity of RD. The fourth component, preparation of future investments will finance the preparation of designs and supporting studies for future investments for the development of the road network.