The intention to make all the roads of the State become toll roads in 2024 has generated some division within the Government and protests from the road transport sector.

And there are also doubts about the chosen system itself, which, in principle, could only affect high-capacity networks and later move to the rest of the roads.

Meanwhile, various pricing systems are being imposed in Europe, either temporary or by distance.

"We are in favor of opening the debate on the possibility of payment for the use of infrastructures", explains

Jacobo Díaz

, general director of the Spanish Road Association. "We have an accumulated deficit that must be reversed in some way and that this could be a solution."

However, he believes that "the Ministry's proposal should be

more ambitious

." In his opinion, the main problem is that it would only encompass the highway network, while the organization prefers an approach that includes "the entire highway network" (except for the interurban one) to avoid "the transfer of mobility. to second level roads ". And, in any case, always with the idea that

the revenues are finalists

: "for the improvement of infrastructures and road mobility".

Díaz also criticizes the fact that users are made to pay "from minute zero."

"We believe that more technologically advanced models can be applied that truly allow demand to be modulated, which is ultimately what would be attempted to achieve greener and more connected mobility," he argues.

Although at the beginning of the nineties only Switzerland went outside the European norm -or traditional tolls or total absence of charging systems- with its vignette, both this system and the distance control were imposed over the years until reaching At the present time, there are hardly any countries in the European Union without some form of payment for the use of infrastructures.

There are currently three types of tolls extended in different countries in Europe.

On the one hand, there is the traditional one, which is the one that has been used historically in Spain: it is applied to certain sections of road, it has physical barriers and the payment is made by vehicles, both light and heavy, in these areas.

The

Mediterranean

countries

(France, Italy or Spain itself, among others) are those that have historically opted for concessions.

In a complementary or alternative way, there are two other types of systems, which are pricing by distance or by time.

The first can be, in turn, controlled by arcs and cameras or by satellites;

the second is known as a vignette, a sticker (physical or electronic) that allows unlimited use of the network for a limited time.

Several Central European countries, such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, Slovakia or Poland opt for distance pricing for heavy vehicles;

some of them, after testing the vignette systems.

Also, you can complement this tool with bullets for light ones.

"It is necessary to take into account", contextualizes Díaz, that these countries "set up a system trying to find that the movements of passage collaborate with the financing of these infrastructures".

"We are an ultraperipheral country in Europe, therefore we believe that we must host some other type of measure because we do not have that massive movement of passage," he points out.

So, what should be the system used in Spain? The AEC advocates what they call "

mobility vouchers

". With this voucher, each citizen would have the right to travel a certain number of kilometers per year (in his example, Díaz speaks of 10,000 for light vehicles and 50,000 for heavy vehicles) and would only pay when they exceed it. "The average at this time is 12,600; if you put up a 10,000 free mobility voucher, 45% of the population will never have to pay for the use of infrastructure," he argues.

Current systems that opt ​​for this type of payment can control the distance through gantries with cameras or through satellites. In the opinion of the AEC, in Spain the second method should be chosen - "what a terminal on board each vehicle would need" -, as they consider it unfeasible to provide the 150,000 kilometers of the Spanish road network with these controls and, if not , there would be "a transfer to lower-category highways."

One of the keys is the free starting point: "what the Government should communicate to all citizens is that since they have paid the road infrastructure with their taxes, they are entitled to a certain mobility voucher." "From there it can also be explained to the citizen that whoever circulates more than 10,000 kilometers can be understood that he is overusing the infrastructures and, therefore, he can be asked to collaborate with the financing", continues the manager .

Another advantage of the model proposed by Díaz is that it is "modular" and, therefore, "one can define different prices depending on the peak hour of the rush hour, the different levels of CO2 emission from the engines, free general in certain areas or night mobility of heavy vehicles ".

In addition, Díaz points out, it is compatible with a highway system financed through a toll concession model, since it would be possible to 'darken' areas so that traveling them would not add kilometers to the bonus.

And, currently, it does not seem feasible to rescue those concessions.

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