Research in Transportation Economics xxx (xxxx) xxx Please cite this article as: Joseph Muvawala, Research in Transportation Economics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2020.100971 0739-8859/© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Socio-economic impacts of transport infrastructure investment in Uganda: Insight from frontloading expenditure on Uganda’s urban roads and highways Joseph Muvawala *, 1 , Hennery Sebukeera 2 , Kurayish Ssebulime 3 National Planning Authority, P.O Box 21434, Kampala, Uganda A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Transport infrastructure Economic growth Uganda ARDL and GKMA ABSTRACT Background: The relationship between transport infrastructure and economic growth has remained one of the most striking expanses from the perspectives of economists, researchers as well as policy makers. This paper therefore has examined the impact of road transport infrastructure investment on Uganda’s economic perfor- mance and also quantifed the economic costs associated with ineffcient urban road transport infrastructure network for the case of Uganda. The paper utilizes a rich econometric methodology involving the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) to estimate the impact of road transport infrastructure and economic growth as well as traffc counts of travel East bound (EB) and West Bound (WB) for the major roads leading to Kampala Capital City to estimate the generalized cost of travel as the city represents more than 70% of the total national vehicle traffc/population. The quantifcation of gains and costs provided a benchmark to inform further policy processes, planning, and feasibility studies. Results: The ARDL bound test results confrmed the existence cointegration of variables although the variables were integrated of different orders. The results of empirical ARDL indicated that investment in road transport infrastructure has both short and long run signifcant impact on economic growth of Uganda. In the long run, the study fnds that investment in road transport infrastructure has a positive and signifcant impact on economic growth. But in the short run, the impact is actually negative. The paper fnds that, a 1 percentage point increase in investment in road transport infrastructure increases economic growth by 0.062 percentage points in the long run. On the other hand, a 1 percentage point increase in investment in road transport infrastructure reduces economic growth in the 1st year of the increase in the expenditure by 0.089 percentage points but (Gross Do- mestic Product) GDP increases by 7.5 percentage points in the second year. This implies that, the impact of road transport infrastructure investment on economic growth occurs with lags for the case of Uganda. Evidence also justifes presence of signifcant economic benefts due to massive investments in the urban transport infra- structure network through express highways and associated roads especially within the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area, municipal authorities and future transport planning for new cities. Conclusion: The main conclusion of this paper is that, with the current state of traffc fow, the country loses about 6.7% of its GDP due to traffc congestion annually. Therefore, projects such as; Kampala fyover project, Entebbe Express Highway, Southern Bypass, Northern Bypass, Kampala Bombo Express Highway, Kampala Jinja Express Highway and Kibuye Mpigi Express highway together with associated urban roads improvements that are planned for seamless fow of traffc within the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA) are highly justifed. These projects should be prioritized, fast-tracked and developed in a concurrent manner to realize the intended results. Further, the negative short run impact of infrastructure spending on growth implies the need to rebalance public spending to also prioritize social sectors. * Corresponding author. National Planning Authority, Kampala Uganda Clement Hill Road; Plot 17B, Uganda. E-mail address: jmuvawala@gmail.com (J. Muvawala). URL: http://www.npa.go.ug (J. Muvawala). 1 Executive Director, National Planning Authority; Kampala Uganda. 2 Senior Planner, in charge of project development and investment planning at the National Planning Authority. 3 Senior Labour Economist in charge of Manpower Planning at the National Planning Authority. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research in Transportation Economics journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/retrec https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2020.100971 Received 29 October 2019; Received in revised form 25 August 2020; Accepted 16 September 2020