The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has announced a government decree that will reduce toll prices on several highways in the interior of the country and in the Algarve starting next year.
“The President of the Republic has promulgated a Government decree that creates a regime for reducing the amount of tolls collected from users on sections and sub-sections of highways in territories within the country or where there are no alternative routes that allow use in quality and safety,” says the statement published this Sunday on the official website of the President of the Republic.
The Government announced on 28 September that from January Class 1 vehicles will receive a 30 per cent reduction in tolls on some former SCUTs (free user tolls) including the A22, A23 and A24.
“We will have a 30% discount compared to current prices on roads such as the A22 (Via do Infante/Algarve), A23 (Beira Interior), A24 (Norte Interior), A25 (Beiras Litoral and Alta), A4 (Maran Tunnel), A13 and A13-1 (Pinhala hinterland),” said Ana Abrunhosa, Minister of Territorial Unity.
The minister also emphasized that the government decided to include in these discounts routes A4, A13 and A13-1, which have never been SCUT, in order to put them “on an equal footing with other routes”, since “with a 50% discount, these routes have not yet existed, so until now they have not been treated the same as others.”
Based on the 2011 baseline when the former SCUTs began charging fares, the Minister indicated that these discounts represent a reduction from 50% to 65%.
The decision is aimed at restoring “territorial justice” in the interior, a government official explained at a press conference.
A source at the Ministry of Territorial Unity then told Lusa that the 30% discount applies to light passenger vehicles (Class 1) and that other classes of vehicles such as heavy passenger vehicles and trucks will receive a 13% discount. during the day, maintaining the current values at night.
The same source justified that the larger discount applies to class 1, since it is the class that impacts families the most.
The measure represents an annual expenditure by the state of about 72 million euros, added Infrastructure Minister João Galamba.
The Minister of Territorial Unity also stressed that these discounts are an “exceptional measure” that the government does not intend to extend to other means, confirming that this is a matter of “territorial fairness” since in these territories “people often do not have alternative routes or public transport.”
Free routes for users were created in the late 1990s, during the government of António Guterres.
The creation of these roads was controversial as the burden of their use fell on the state, but in 2010, then-Prime Minister José Sócrates approved the introduction of tolls under the SCUT concessions.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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