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Zhuang Pinghui

The Ministry of Transport is seeking views on whether to remove a cap on the number of years tolls can be collected on roads.
The Toll Road Management Regulation stipulates that toll road fees can be charged for only 15 to 30 years depending on how the road is financed.
The proposed rule change would allow tolls to be collected for more than 30 years on highways that involved large investments and a long return period.
When the term expires or when the highway has paid off its government debts, tolls could be charged for maintenance purposes.
The amendment would also forbid tolls on roads at or below "level two" - meaning those with speed limits of 60 to 80km/h, even if they were later upgraded to "level one" roads with speed limits of above 80km/h.
The public consultation on the proposed change opened yesterday and ends on August 20.
Last month, the ministry said the mainland boasted the longest road network, with 4.46 million kilometres of roads and 111,900km of highways. Toll roads account for 162,600km, or 3.6 per cent, of the total.
The massive road network ran at a loss of 157 billion yuan (HK$199 billion) last year, a significant increase from its loss in 2013 of 66.1 billion yuan.
In 2012, tolls were waived for the first time over the seven-day National Day break. The move increased the number of motorists on the roads during the period by 13 per cent from the previous year and caused traffic jams across the country.
Wang Tai, deputy director of the transport ministry's highway bureau, said it was "reasonable" to collect tolls in the long term.
Taxes and public financing alone could not cover all the construction, maintenance and management costs of the country's highways, he said.
It has been proven that it is very difficult to maintain a huge highway network solely by tax revenues, even in the United States
Wang Tai, deputy director of the transport ministry's highway bureau
"It has been proven that it is very difficult to maintain a huge highway network solely by tax revenues, even in the United States," Wang said.
To strike a practical balance, he said, the bureau had come up with a "two-highway network" concept, in which one group of highways would collect only taxes and provide a basic public service while the other group would collect low tolls and provide efficient service.
It was reasonable for highway users to pay fees over the long term because tolled expressways accounted for only 3 per cent of all roads and those who benefited from the highly efficient road service should pay for it, Wang said.
As the remaining 97 per cent of roads were ordinary ones, it was fair to collect universal taxes from car owners for the government's provision of basic and equal public road services, the deputy director added.
Tolls collected were used only to maintain the roads, the transport ministry said.


China's transport ministry mulls charging tolls for longer

Toll roads make up 3.6 per cent of the nation's total. Photo: Reuters

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Proposed rule change would allow charges to be collected for more than 30 years on highways that involved large investments


China's transport ministry mulls charging tolls for longer

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Proposed rule change would allow charges to be collected for more than 30 years on highways that involved large investments

Proposed rule change would allow charges to be collected for more than 30 years on highways that involved large investments