Thoroughly Solve the Traffic Congestion at the Provincial Boundary of Expressway —— The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Transport responded to the cancellation of the toll station at the

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 10th Title: Completely Solve the Traffic Congestion at the Provincial Boundary of Expressway —— The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Transport responded to the cancellation of the toll station at the provincial boundary of expressway.

Xinhua News Agency reporters Zhao Wenjun and Wei Yukun

The the State Council executive meeting held recently proposed to basically cancel the provincial toll stations of national expressways before the end of this year. Why choose to cancel the provincial toll station at the current development stage? What conveniences and benefits will it bring to economic development and ordinary people’s travel? What are the difficulties and obstacles at present? The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Transport responded to this at the routine briefing of the State Council policy on the 10th.

Completely solve the traffic congestion at the provincial boundary of expressway.

"The cancellation of provincial toll stations on expressways is determined by the actual needs of China’s economic and social development." Dai Dongchang, vice minister of transportation, said.

With the rapid development of China’s economy and society, the long-distance movement of people and materials has become increasingly frequent, the inter-provincial driving of vehicles has increased substantially, and the phenomenon of queuing for payment at some provincial toll stations has become increasingly frequent, which has seriously affected the traffic efficiency of expressway network and aroused strong social reaction.

In order to solve the congestion problem of provincial toll stations, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Chongqing tried first, and at the end of 2018, they took the lead in canceling all 15 provincial toll stations of expressways between the two pilot provinces.

China’s expressways have experienced more than 20 years of development. From the beginning, according to the road section, each road section and each project set up their own toll stations, and then realized the intranet in the province and canceled the toll stations in the province. In 2010, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta regions will be networked. In 2015, the national expressway ETC network will be realized. According to the statistical bulletin on the development of transportation industry in 2018, by the end of 2018, the mileage of expressways in China had reached 142,600 kilometers.

Dai Dongchang said that through the previous reforms, the toll stations within the province, within the road sections and between regions have been cancelled. This time, the toll stations between the provincial boundaries have to be solved, that is, all the toll stations except the entrances and exits have been cancelled.

"Before the end of this year, the provincial toll stations of national expressways were basically cancelled, and the whole network entered a new stage of no station except import and export, basically achieving integrated operation and smooth traffic all the way." Dai Dongchang said.

According to statistics, under normal circumstances, the average time for buses to cross provincial boundaries has been reduced from 15 seconds to 2 seconds, a decrease of about 86.7%; The average time for trucks to cross provincial boundaries was reduced from 29 seconds to 3 seconds, down by 89.7%. Because vehicles no longer need to queue up to pay fees, the phenomenon of traffic congestion at provincial boundaries has been completely solved, and remarkable results have been achieved in energy conservation and emission reduction.

Dai Dongchang said that the cancellation of the toll station at the provincial boundary of the expressway is conducive to completely solving the traffic congestion at the provincial boundary of the expressway and further improving the traffic efficiency of the expressway; Conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction, reducing vehicle operating costs and reducing exhaust emissions; It is conducive to reducing the investment in expressway operation and reducing the cost of expressway investors, managers and users; It is conducive to speeding up the construction of smart roads and promoting high-quality development, which is a practical and good thing.

Accelerate the popularization of ETC

After the cancellation of provincial toll stations, vehicle identification, path recording and non-stop charging mainly rely on ETC vehicle-mounted devices, while non-ETC vehicles need manual parking charges. Therefore, it is very important to speed up the popularization of ETC, the electronic non-stop charging system.

"Ensure that before the end of this year, the utilization rate of fast non-stop will reach over 90%." Dai Dongchang said that if only the provincial toll stations are cancelled, and the fast toll collection without stopping is not implemented, or the use of ETC does not reach a certain proportion, it will cause a lot of congestion at the entrance and exit in the future, reducing the operating efficiency of the whole road network. At the same time, a small number of manual toll lanes are reserved for vehicles that have not installed ETC in time for some reason.

By the end of March this year, the total number of ETC users in China had reached 80,726,300, the car installation rate was about 34%, and the utilization rate of ETC payment on expressways was about 45%, which was far from the requirement of fast charging without stopping.

Dai Dongchang said that various ways and means such as preferential treatment, discount and free installation should be adopted to guide and encourage vehicles to install and use ETC, so as to improve the operation efficiency of the road network and realize the purpose of fast charging without stopping.

Unified traffic policy and standardized management

The abolition of provincial toll stations has broken the past pattern of charging and managing expressway vehicles by province, and formed the trend of integrated operation and service of the whole network, which requires unified traffic policies and standardized management.

Dai Dongchang introduced that the cancellation of provincial toll stations on expressways is a complex systematic project, involving engineering construction, optimization and adjustment of charging policies, and promotion and popularization of ETC. It is necessary to speed up the construction and improvement of the expressway toll collection system, including clearing and settlement at the central and local levels and upgrading the operation management system. Accelerate the revision of relevant laws and regulations such as highway law and toll road management regulations, comprehensively sort out, optimize and improve all kinds of preferential policies for toll reduction and exemption, especially clean up and standardize all kinds of policies that require manual inspection and affect fair competition, so that highway vehicles can pass more fairly and quickly.

According to preliminary statistics, at present, there are about 27 provinces in China that impose restrictions on dangerous chemicals transport vehicles, but the time limit is not uniform; Motorbikes are prohibited on expressways in 17 provinces; Seventeen provinces have expanded the catalogue of fresh agricultural products that enjoy the "green channel" policy, and 25 provinces have introduced preferential policies for local toll reduction. Some of them need manual inspection, some are only for local vehicles, and some policies are not unified among provinces.

Dai Dongchang said that these are not suitable for the relevant requirements such as fast charging without stopping, and it is urgent to optimize and clean up the norms.

"It is not only an important part of deepening the reform of highway toll system, but also an important measure to reduce logistics costs to cancel provincial toll stations and realize fast toll collection without stopping. This is interrelated." Dai Dongchang said.

Dai Dongchang said that in order to prevent and resolve the debt risk of toll roads, the Ministry of Transport will cooperate with relevant departments to increase the issuance of special bonds for toll roads, promote local government bonds to replace the existing debts of government toll roads that meet the policy requirements, optimize the debt structure, and prevent and resolve debt risks.

Regarding the resettlement of personnel after the abolition of provincial toll stations, Dai Dongchang said that it is necessary to protect the legitimate rights and interests of personnel, adhere to the principle of territorial responsibility and not being laid off after transferring jobs, and formulate work plans in accordance with national laws, regulations and policies for proper resettlement.