Recently, Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China presided over the the State Council executive meeting, made clear the policy measures, and strived to basically cancel the provincial toll stations of national expressways before the end of this year, so as to facilitate people’s travel and improve logistics efficiency. Compared with this year’s "Government Work Report", the deadline has been advanced.
According to the data of logistics operation in 2018 released by China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the ratio of total social logistics expenses to GDP in 2018 is 14.8%, in which the ratio of transportation expenses has decreased steadily, which is still far from the level of 8% to 9% in major developed countries and 11% to 13% in emerging economies. Behind the high ratio are practical problems such as the need to improve logistics efficiency, especially the issue of provincial boundary charges explicitly mentioned at the the State Council executive meeting has long been criticized.
The reason why there are provincial toll stations is that most of the expressways are financed, built in sections and maintained by the provinces themselves. Therefore, in order to recover the initial investment as soon as possible, maintain daily operations and even make profits, all provinces will set up station fees. There is nothing wrong with unified planning and construction of toll stations in this province, but when it comes to provincial boundaries, strange phenomena such as inter-provincial broken roads often appear. In addition, the existence of provincial toll stations makes it necessary for vehicles leaving the province to pay centrally at the provincial boundaries, and it is not uncommon for traffic jams to occur. The value of expressway lies in allowing vehicles to pass at high speed, and the existence of toll stations hinders the connection of expressways between provinces to a certain extent, forcing passing vehicles to go through more deceleration and parking processes, which will undoubtedly hinder the realization of expressway value and seriously affect logistics efficiency.
Therefore, the benefits of canceling provincial toll stations are self-evident. However, it is worth emphasizing that the abolition of provincial toll stations is not the abolition of fees, but the gradual replacement of non-stop express charging system. As Wu Chungeng, spokesperson of the Ministry of Transport, said at the press conference earlier, the full coverage of ETC (Electronic Non-stop Express Toll Collection System) is the key factor to successfully cancel the provincial toll stations of expressways across the country. Therefore, the most urgent task at present is to vigorously popularize ETC and carry out the construction and transformation of ETC portal system of toll lanes.
From this point of view, with the rapid popularization and use of ETC, the process of canceling provincial toll stations will be gradually advanced, and its benefits will gradually emerge. The most direct benefit is that it will reduce the number of stops of passing vehicles and alleviate the congestion of toll stations. Passing vehicles can not only save a lot of gas money, but also save a lot of time. On the whole, considering the total number of high-speed vehicles in the country, the overall effect will be more impressive.
But the potential benefits are by no means limited to this. Under the situation of a chess game in the national economy, the saying that "if you want to get rich, build roads first" is still out of date, and Unicom’s national expressway network is an important driving force to change the phenomenon of inter-provincial market segmentation. The cancellation of provincial toll stations will not only help to reduce the operating cost of expressways and improve the efficiency of vehicle traffic, but also help to establish a unified national market, expand effective demand and further inject momentum into economic development.
In addition, it should also be noted that the voice of "high-speed free" appears in the public opinion field from time to time. This shows that the public still has certain expectations for high-speed free, at least for reducing fees. However, from the current situation, the conditions for high-speed free are not yet mature. In addition, the previous policy of benefiting the people at high speed during holidays did reduce the economic cost of travelers to a certain extent, but with the high-speed free, the traffic volume was greatly increased, which made the expressway no longer high-speed, increased the time cost of travelers and affected the travel experience of travelers. This shows that the core of reducing the economic and time cost of public use of expressways is to improve the efficiency of the whole transportation system and continue to improve various supporting measures, so as to effectively enhance the public’s sense of acquisition, happiness and security.(postdoctoral fellow in applied economics, China Academy of Fiscal Science) Panhelin)
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