Toll rates in Colombia have generated anxiety in recent days. The foregoing, due to the fact that the National Government made the decision to freeze the prices of the stations on the country’s roads during 2023, although the measure only applies to those managed by the National Institute of Roads (Invías) and the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI), which means that departmental tolls may increase their value.
It is also important to clarify that there are some concessioned tolls that managed to raise their prices before decree 050 of 2023 became official and they have already warned that the values will not drop. In addition to this panorama, some unions in the cargo sector have expressed their objections to the price of tolls. Although they consider that this measure will benefit the sector, they believe that it is necessary to analyze which tolls should be collected and which ones should be modified, since money that should be allocated to infrastructure maintenance is collected on roads that do not have minimum passability conditions.
“Our proposal is the following: toll rates must be directly proportional to the state of the roads and the services they offer to users. There are tolls that not only should not increase their rate, but should not even be collected. The Ministry of Transportation asked all the unions for a report on the state of the roads that are in poor condition and we have already delivered this document with the evidence,” added Nidia Hernández, president of Colfecar.
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For his part, the Minister of Transportation, Guillermo Reyes, outlined that he is evaluating the possibility of adopting the payment of tolls according to the state of the road. “We are going to review all the roads that are in poor condition and where tolls are charged, establish differential rates, because tolls cannot be suspended by law, and we are going to establish differential rates, as we hope to do on Ruta del Sol while it is being repaired. the way and delivered. In this case we would establish a differential rate, which can be 80%. We are about to define it and as the road is rehabilitated, the full charge would return », he concluded.