Submit toll collection plan for state-invested highways

Vehicles traveling on the Mai Son-National Highway 45 section are put into operation.

The Ministry of Transport has just submitted a document to the Government on submitting to the National Assembly a Resolution on collecting fees for using state-invested highways.

There are no regulations on highway usage fees.

According to the report of the Ministry of Transport, the National Assembly has recently agreed on the policy of allocating State budget resources to invest in a number of expressways. In the context of limited budget resources, the National Assembly has requested research on recovering invested capital.

Comparing with current legal regulations, the leader of the Ministry of Transport emphasized that researching, developing and submitting to the National Assembly for promulgation a Resolution allowing toll collection on state-invested highways is extremely necessary to successfully implement the goals set forth in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress.

According to the current system of legal documents, road use fees are collected in accordance with the provisions of the law on fees and charges (fee mechanism) and road service fees for investment projects for business purposes are collected in accordance with the provisions of the law on prices (price mechanism).

However, the application of the pricing mechanism to collect road usage fees through toll stations on expressways is only applied to road construction projects for business purposes (currently investment projects under the PPP form). Expressways invested by the State are not yet defined as road construction investment projects for business purposes, so this form is not applied.

Regarding the fee mechanism, the Law on Fees and Charges currently stipulates that the list of fees in the road sector includes one type of fee, which is the "road use fee". There are no regulations on expressway use fees collected through stations on expressways invested by the State.

The Ministry of Transport also analyzed that in the case of not collecting highway usage fees, vehicle owners will tend to concentrate on moving on the highway, leading to increased traffic volume, potentially posing a risk of traffic safety and also affecting the financial plans of BOT projects.

Difficult to propose as a pilot project

During the 2018-2021 period, the Ministry of Transport has researched, developed and submitted many reports and proposals on mechanisms and policies for toll collection, as well as capital recovery mechanisms for expressways that have been and are being invested in by the State to the Government and the Prime Minister.

On February 8, 2023, the Ministry of Finance chaired a meeting with relevant ministries and branches and requested the Ministry of Transport to study and develop a pilot plan to collect fees for using expressways invested by the State.

On that basis, the Ministry of Transport has further studied the plan to report to the Government to submit to the National Assembly to issue a pilot mechanism for collecting tolls for using expressways on some expressway sections/routes invested by the State, with the main contents such as the scope and subjects being expressway routes invested by the State completed and put into operation before 2025; the principle of dividing the collected amount according to the capital contribution ratio for expressways when using central and local budget sources; the maximum time for pilot collection according to the toll mechanism is 5 years from the time the expressway section/routes are implemented to collect tolls. After the above pilot collection period, the Ministry of Transport will evaluate and summarize to propose a suitable mechanism.

Vehicles enter the automatic non-stop toll lane at the toll station at the beginning of the Hanoi-Hai Phong expressway.

In the comment documents, the ministries all requested to clarify the reasons for the proposal to submit to the National Assembly to issue a policy on the pilot mechanism; in the case of a pilot, the implementation process should apply the price mechanism or the fee mechanism; the purpose of collecting money to recover capital or to pay to the budget; clarify the scope of application to all expressway projects using State budget capital (including BOT projects that have been transferred to the State...), with parallel roads or newly invested expressway projects using 100% State budget capital according to the Resolutions of the National Assembly.

However, the Ministry of Transport finds it very difficult to propose to the National Assembly to allow a pilot as a new policy proposal.... In case there is a pilot in terms of scope and time, it must also rely on the collection mechanism (fee or price) for implementation.

Can use toll revenue to buy back BOT stations?

Therefore, the Ministry of Transport believes that the option of collecting road usage fees through toll stations on state-invested highways under a fee mechanism is more effective and feasible than the option of collecting fees under a price mechanism.

Furthermore, the collected toll amount is paid to the State budget and used according to the law on budget, in which priority is given to investment, management and maintenance of road traffic infrastructure, and implementation of the State's responsibility for road investment projects under the form of BOT contracts in case of being affected by diversion when the expressways are put into operation.

The Cao Bo-Mai Son expressway project was inaugurated and put into operation during the Lunar New Year of the Tiger.

The principle of dividing the amount of tolls collected on each expressway route is paid into the central budget and local budget according to the ratio of investment capital from the central budget and local budget participating in the investment project of that expressway route.

With the above research, analysis and assessment results, the Ministry of Transport proposes that the Government consider and submit to the National Assembly a Resolution allowing the collection of fees for using expressways invested by the State and adding it to the List of Fees and Charges attached to the Law on Fees and Charges.

According to Vietnam+