The Eurasian Land Bridge represents a major international transport corridor spanning Asia and Europe, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The second Eurasian Land Bridge, which runs east from Lianyungang in China to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, serves as the primary route for China-Europe freight trains and forms a crucial economic belt under the Belt and Road Initiative. While railways form the backbone of this network, the dense highway systems across Central Asia provide essential support for building an integrated transportation framework and bridging the critical final connection gap. This raises an important question: how does toll collection actually work across Central Asian road networks?

Central Asian toll roads currently operate under a pattern characterized by one country leading the way, others following suit, and varied implementation approaches. Kazakhstan stands as the region's most comprehensive and developed toll road operator. According to official data from Kazakhstan's national highway company, as of July 2026, the country operates 29 toll sections covering 6,381.59 kilometers, comprising 14 first-class highways and 15 second-to-third-class roads. Under its Bright Path economic policy, Kazakhstan has implemented differentiated pricing structures, prepaid discount programs, and mechanisms that suspend tolls when road quality defects are identified. All collected revenue is directed exclusively toward road maintenance. Toll rates remain notably affordable across these routes, with the approximately 300-kilometer journey from the Khorgos border crossing in Xinjiang to Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, costing passenger vehicles the equivalent of less than 10 yuan in tolls—a figure that frequently surprises self-driving travelers with its low cost.

Uzbekistan has emerged as the next adopter of toll systems. On August 17, the country's presidential press office announced that the Urgench-Khiva expressway, its first toll road, would soon open to traffic. The highway spans roughly 35 kilometers, connecting Khiva and Urgench in the Khorezm region, and is expected to reduce travel time from one hour to under 20 minutes. Just one month prior, construction officially commenced on the Tashkent-Samarkand high-speed toll highway, a project with total investment of approximately $2.2 billion. Once completed, travel time between these two cities will decrease from the current 5.5 hours to between 2 and 2.5 hours. Experts note that these two highways will help strengthen Uzbekistan's position as a Eurasian land transport hub, stimulate logistics, trade, and tourism along the corridors, and generate substantial employment opportunities.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have adopted more targeted approaches. Kyrgyzstan has focused on its high-cost tunnel infrastructure, implementing special tolls on north-south arterial tunnels starting in 2026, with all proceeds allocated to facility operations and maintenance to address the challenge of sustaining major engineering projects. Tajikistan operates the Dushanbe-Chanak toll expressway, the country's only fully tolled trunk route, which connects the capital with the northern core economic region. Operating under a concession model to repay project loans, it represents one of Central Asia's earliest examples of commercial highway operations. Turkmenistan, while not yet implementing commercial toll roads, continues advancing upgrades to its domestic trunk routes, laying groundwork for potential future tolling models.

The gradual expansion of toll roads across Central Asia reflects the practical demands of regional infrastructure transformation. Historically, road construction and maintenance in the region have depended heavily on fiscal allocations, with maintenance funding shortfalls ranging from 40 to 60 percent. The problem of being able to build roads but failing to maintain them adequately has become a persistent industry challenge. Many highways funded through government budgets and international loans lack sufficient ongoing maintenance provisions, causing road deterioration to outpace repair efforts. In response, the Asian Development Bank has identified toll roads as a vital solution to Central Asia's highway maintenance funding gap. The user-pays model generates stable cash flows, establishing a sustainable cycle of construction, tolling, maintenance, and reinvestment that enhances efficiency and reduces costs across China-Europe and Central Asian north-south cross-border logistics corridors.

These efforts are already showing measurable results. World Bank research on the Kazakhstan section of the Western Europe-Western China corridor reveals that after high-quality tolled trunk routes became operational, corridor transit times decreased by approximately 67 percent, while comprehensive road user costs fell by 35 percent. The improvements have also stimulated employment and commercial activity along the routes. However, alongside these opportunities, significant challenges remain. Asian Development Bank technical assessments highlight multiple common constraints facing Central Asia's toll road sector. Some remote arterial routes experience lower-than-expected traffic volumes from freight and passenger vehicles, directly impacting returns on concession investments. Toll charges raise transportation costs for ordinary residents and small-to-medium enterprises, making social affordability an unavoidable consideration. Several countries still lack complete supporting infrastructure, electronic toll collection adoption rates require improvement, and mechanisms for cross-border toll recognition remain absent. Additionally, inflation and currency fluctuations increase construction and operations expenses, amplifying performance risks in public-private partnership projects.

Looking ahead, the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program, a regional initiative established by the Asian Development Bank, has proposed four key recommendations. First, project selection should exercise strategic judgment, prioritizing high-traffic routes along cross-border transport corridors and between major cities. Second, digital transformation should accelerate through widespread adoption of non-stop electronic toll collection and enhanced interconnectivity of toll data across multiple countries. Third, social safeguards must be strengthened, including guaranteed free alternative routes and preferential policies for local users, balancing commercial viability with the public service nature of highways. Fourth, comprehensive lifecycle asset management should be implemented, linking construction quality, maintenance performance, and toll efficiency to prevent the recurring problem of prioritizing construction while neglecting ongoing upkeep.