The average increase in motorway tolls in France should amount to 0.92%, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned on Friday, November 29, from an anonymous source, confirming the figures revealed by the newspaper. The Parisian.
The increase, applied every 1Ahem February, this time will be less strong than in previous years. It had been around 3% on average in 2024 and 4.75% in 2023, a consequence in particular of inflation. This rate is also ” lower “ to the increase in tolls in 2018 and 2019, “either before the health crisis or before the energy shock linked to the war in Ukraine”recalled the same source.
It also remains below inflation, as the Bank of France currently estimates that price increases will reach 1.5% next year.
Contacted by AFP, those around the Minister responsible for Transport, François Durovray, also confirmed these elements. “This decision is the result of a true battle that the minister fought to defend the purchasing power of the French, knowing the daily weight that mobility represents on household budgets”according to those around him.
“Reinvent the model” of highways
In addition to inflation, the annual evolution of toll road prices is calculated based on the investment plans of the concessionaire companies.
On November 13, Durovray said that he was determined to “reinvent the model” at the end of the current concessions, after a meeting with those responsible. The ministry then announced that a conference on the future of mobility financing planned for early 2025 would integrate the issue of “motorway network management”. The end of the main concessions is scheduled between 2031 and 2036.
On October 23, a report presented to the Senate recommended maintaining highway tolls at the end of the current concessions, which are very profitable for their managers, but thoroughly reforming their model, reducing the duration of the contracts and the number of kilometers of each a. concession to avoid the control of a handful of big players.
The price of tolls could remain stable, but a part of the amounts collected could be dedicated to the maintenance of non-concessioned motorways, deteriorating national roads or the railway network, according to this report by the centrist Eure senator Hervé Maurey.
Le Monde Buying Guides
Reusable water bottles
The best water bottles to replace disposable bottles
Read
In 2015, Ségolène Royal, then Minister of Ecology, obtained a price freeze, but it was counteracted by increases, from 2019 to 2023, within the framework of an agreement that also provided for an extension of concessions and a motorway recovery plan of 3.2 billion. euros.
