The price of toll motorways could be variable and fall during hours of low traffic

As many of you know, the situation of toll motorways in Spain is absolutely ruinous. As my colleague Diego told you a few months ago, the concession companies owe more than 4,000 million euros, and 9 of them are in insolvency proceedings, so imagination has to be put to work to find measures that alleviate this situation.

One of those measures is what we bring you in this article, because according to what has become known in the “Plan of measures for growth, competitiveness and efficiency”, the possibility of establishing a variable price for motorway tolls that would vary depending on the time of day is being evaluated. The mechanism of the measure would be as simple as charging less to those drivers who use the motorway during the so-called “off-peak hours”, that is, the hours with the least traffic.

This measure could help give somewhat more use to the motorways at times of low usage and, with it, would increase revenue. The problem is that with the economic crisis traffic has fallen, and moreover we look closely at where we spend every last euro. On many occasions we opt for the toll sections to travel more safely or avoid traffic jams, something that does not happen in those low-usage hours, although if they make it cheap enough we could choose the toll to gain time and safety on some stretches.

What do you think of the measure? Do you consider it interesting? We will keep an eye on whether it is finally implemented, although its help in improving the current debt situation seems marginal, so solutions will have to keep being sought, because the traffic figures on these roads are in free fall for several years now (fewer than 16,000 vehicles per day), and for the moment it does not seem that the figures are going to improve.

Source | ABC