Maputo-KaTembe Bridge & Ring Road Tolling (REVIMO)

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means

Since November 2018 the 3,041 m Maputo-KaTembe bridge — reported as Africa's longest suspension bridge at opening, built by China Road and Bridge Corporation with roughly 85% of its ~$726-785 million cost on a 20-year, 4% China Exim Bank credit — has linked the municipal districts of Nlhamankulu and KaTembe, tolled by concessionaire REVIMO, which also runs the plazas on Maputo's ring road. The data layer is the payment side: class-based tariffs, prepaid frequent-user cards, and a register of KaTembe residents who pay a reduced rate; in March 2026 REVIMO reported a licence-plate-recognition pilot at the ring-road plazas cutting passage time from about 30 to 3 seconds. Tolling has been politically fragile: collection was suspended for weeks during the 2024-25 post-electoral protests, its resumption on 27 January 2025 was met by drivers blockading the plaza and crossing on foot past a heavy police presence, and from 15 May 2025 the government cut tariffs — the class-1 car rate to 100 meticais (from 125, originally 160) and both registered KaTembe residents and public-transport chapas to 40.

Live 📅 since 2018
Scale🏙️ City-wide
Cost≈US$726-785M bridge construction (≈85% China Exim Bank credit, 20 years at 4%)
FundingChina Exim Bank export credit (construction); toll revenue under REVIMO concession (operation)

📊 Impact

REVIMO reports its March 2026 automatic licence-plate-reading pilot on the Maputo ring-road plazas cut passage time from about 30 to 3 seconds (operator figure, pilot phase only); no independent traffic or revenue evaluation of the toll system has been published.

🎓 Lesson

A toll meant to repay an export credit meets its limit where affordability does: after weeks of suspension and a plaza blockade, it was the government — not the concession's pricing model — that set the rates.

Sources

↗ Wikipédia (pt) — Ponte Maputo-KatembeCarries: opening to traffic 10 Nov 2018, 3,041 m length/680 m main span, districts linked, CRBC as builder, ~85% ($681.6M) China Exim Bank credit at 4%/20 years, original 160-1,200 MT tariff range, and the 'replaced Matadi as Africa's longest suspension bridge' claim (attributed, not asserted independently).
↗ SAPO/Lusa — Acesso a Maputo pela ponte de Katembe bloqueado contra pagamento de portagens (27 Jan 2025)Carries: REVIMO resumed toll collection on 27 Jan 2025 after a weeks-long suspension during post-electoral protests; drivers immobilised vehicles, blocked the plaza and crossed on foot; strong police contingent present.
↗ Jornal Notícias — REVIMO melhora fluidez do tráfego nas portagens de Maputo (16 Mar 2026)Carries: automatic licence-plate-reading pilot at the Estrada Circular de Maputo plazas, passage time cut from 30 to 3 seconds, automatic cash/prepaid settlement — pilot phase only, no expansion timeline.
↗ AIM — Novas tarifas nas portagens a partir desta quinta-feira (15 May 2025)Carries: government-set tariff cuts effective 15 May 2025 — KaTembe class-1 toll 125 to 100 MT, registered KaTembe residents 50 to 40 MT, public transport 60 to 40 MT. Site blocks automated fetch (403); outlet, date and figures verified via search results, corroborated by Folha de Maputo's '40 meticais' headline.
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Maputo-KaTembe Bridge & Ring Road Tolling (REVIMO)” — Maputo, Mozambique. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/maputo-katembe-bridge-tolling/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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