The route has a length of 10,808 km (6,716 mi) and has the longest missing links and requires the most new road construction.

South Africa was not originally included in the route which was first planned in the Apartheid era, but it is now recognized that it would continue to Cape Town.

The central section is however a 'missing link', and the planned alignment between CAR and ROC would pass through some of the most remote and difficult terrain and rainforests of the Sangha River basin.

An alternative alignment for the road has been proposed between Yaoundé, Cameroon and Brazzaville, ROC, which would do more to facilitate transport between the south and west of the continent, and which would probably have less of an environmental impact.

As well as being shorter for traffic between south and west, this alternative alignment has other advantages: it already carries a little international traffic, it runs through more populated and economically active areas, it adds Gabon (and its capital, Libreville, via a spur) to the network, and it passes very close to Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni) and the Atlantic ports of Douala and Pointe-Noire.