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The graciousness of the routes of high capacity in Spain converts to our country on an island in front of the rest of Europe, where the pay-per-use is common. The minister in the functions of Promotion, José Luis Ábalos , was tasked last year to open the melon of the application of a toll on highways that currently are free, given that its maintenance entails to the public purse 11.000 million per year, a quantity to which we must add the accumulated deficit of 6.617 billion, according to data of the Spanish Road Association.
Those figures will be enlarged with the successive order of the various concessions in the toll roads up to 2021. The debate is open and opponents of the toll and defenders of the payment by using keep their thesis facing each other.
The Government in office is daisy leaf by leaf from applying a pricing system in the way of high-capacity Spain , as do virtually all countries of the rest of Europe , where there is no concept of road free. The promotion still has not been chosen by any of the formulas prevalent in our environment, such as the bullet, pay for the weight of the vehicle or the charging by distance travelled, although there is also the payment for access in inputs or outputs, for periods of use by means of flat rates for days, weeks, or months, or charging for congestion, according to the time delays caused by the withholding.
The goal of the pricing structure which extends in the whole of Europe seeks to tackle the problem of deficit in infrastructure maintenance and improvements in the quality of the roads and environment from the reduction of CO2 emissions; it is also a faithful representation of the actual cost per use, including externalities, which brings about the transparency in the relationship with the actual cost of the services, in addition to a reduction of congestion, to prioritize the transfer to other means of transport. To this we must add that the non-residents in the country also contribute to the improvement of the infrastructure when they use it, as would be the case of foreign carriers, and the million visitors that we visit, applying some model of the payment also in Spain.
Expire the concessions
In either case, the Government of the PSOE is already awarded by the General State Budget for the maintenance of the highways whose concession will expire at the end of this year. This is the AP-4 from Seville to Cadiz, of 94 miles in length, and of the AP-7 from Alicante to Tarragona, 373 kilometres, after December 1, 2018 will raise the barriers in highway AP-1, from Burgos to Armiñón (Alava), a release that has led to a greater traffic problems and delays. These will join in 2021, the end of the concession of three motorways: the AP-7, Zaragoza-Mediterranean, the AP-2 to Tarragona-La Jonquera and the AP-7 Montmeló-El Papiol.
In the rest of Europe to pay per kilometre, flat rate, access or egress, and congestion
With the severe economic crisis that started in 2008, the traffic on the freeway, slumped to 48.3% for example in the radial of Madrid, whose rescue by not ever reach the targets calculated in the concessions, together with other sections to add 9, it has not yet been calculated and ranges between s 2,000 million euros from the Government and the 5.500 million that says Seopan, management of large construction.
The eurovignette that does not get
the European Union established The eurovignette as the framework for the heavy vehicles of transport of goods, but its implementation is not mandatory has given rise to different systems of payment. Except in Spain, where only 18% of the 17.021 kilometres of roads of high capacity (3.039 km) has toll explicit to its users. The rest of the network is paid for by the public purse of the different administrations. For example, you also have the toll, but in the shade, another 12% of our network (2.119 km). The toll in the shadow supposed that the administrations paid to the construction with money coming from public budgets. Currently, the network in charge of the State toll road in the shade is formed by ten concession companies, while the dependent network of the autonomous communities exceeded the 30 concessions. The other roads of high capacity, which represents a total of 11.863 km (70%) , are the highways free from any toll, so that flow through them is free for its users.
But in the free roads do not exist. Their costs are many: construction, maintenance, congestion and pollution. The charging systems currently existing in countries of the EU will also fail to cover all the costs. Experts consider that at a time when infrastructure investment is essential to boost the european economy and progress towards a true single market, the optimization of the use of the roads requires a common approach.
The same experts point out that the private sector can contribute to the necessary investment in infrastructure, as is the case in France, where was adopted in 2014 the so-called Plan Relance Autoroutier, with which the French Government drove twenty projects for more than 3.270 million euros. Investments that made the concession in exchange for extensions of time limits or other types of compensation, so that it does not assume a penny from the public coffers in a context of strong budgetary constraints.
