What do you think about long-term highway tolls?

Highway toll collection is a common topic. The introduction of the revised draft once again triggered a backlash in public opinion. Of course, this news is in line with the general trend of state-owned enterprise reform. It is a booster for various provinces to build listed companies worth 100 billion. It also gives reassurance to the maintenance groups affiliated to the Transportation Investment Group, a unit directly under the provincial transportation department.

In this regard, as a consumer, do you have the basic right to know after paying high highway tolls for many years?

Why expressways suffer huge losses

Why expressways suffer huge losses is probably the issue that the public is most concerned about. The official statement is that the rapid growth of highway mileage is accompanied by the rapid growth of debt and the highway's successive losses. On June 30, 2014, the Ministry of Transport published the "2014 National Toll Road Statistical Bulletin" (hereinafter referred to as the "Statistical Bulletin"). The bulletin showed that as of the end of 2014, the cumulative investment in toll road construction nationwide was 6.1449 billion yuan (excluding Toll roads have been cancelled), of which capital investment was 1.8797 billion yuan, accounting for 31.6% of the total cumulative investment in toll road construction; debt capital investment was 4.26520 billion yuan, accounting for 69.4% of the total cumulative investment in toll road construction. However, such a large amount of investment has not received a good return. The "Statistical Bulletin" shows that in 2014, the balance of payments of toll roads nationwide was negative 157.11 billion yuan, that is, the balance of payments gap was 157.11 billion yuan. This is not the first time highway losses have occurred: in 2013, the national toll highway balance of payments was negative 66.1 billion yuan, or an overall loss of 66.1 billion yuan. This year's loss is 2.37 times that of last year.

Where did the huge losses come from? Wang Tai, deputy director of the Highway Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, believes that the reasons include the increase in principal and interest payments during the normal debt repayment stage and the increasing scale of debt. The large scale of debt is inseparable from the huge demand for funds for toll roads and the "loan road construction" method of raising funds. Coupled with the accelerated speed of road construction, high debts have been accumulated.

However, just the huge scale of debt cannot explain the real source of losses. There is a very interesting data in the "Statistical Bulletin". As of the end of 2014, the country's toll road mileage was 162,600 kilometers. Divided by attributes, government loan repayment roads were 104,000 kilometers and commercial roads were 58,500 kilometers, accounting for 50% of the country's toll road mileage respectively. 64.0% and 36.0%. According to the explanation, government loan-repaying roads "refers to roads built by the transportation authorities of local governments at or above the county level using loans or paid funds raised from enterprises and individuals, and fiscal bills are used when charging", while commercial roads "refers to domestic and foreign economic organizations For roads that invest in the construction or are assigned the right to charge highways for government loan repayment in accordance with the provisions of the Highway Law, tax bills are used when tolling. "In other words, government loan repayment roads are non-profit roads, while operating roads are for-profit roads. From the perspective of balance of payments, of the total revenue and expenditure gap of 157.11 billion yuan, the revenue and expenditure gap of government loan repayment roads is 129.37 billion yuan, and the revenue and expenditure gap of operating roads is 27.74 billion yuan, accounting for 82.34% and 17.66% respectively. Under the premise that highway toll standards are unified, government loan repayment highways, which only account for 64% of the toll mileage, account for 82.34% of the losses, which is disproportionate to their mileage. Does this indicate that non-profit-oriented government loan repayments may lead to more losses?

Why are the operating costs of government-loaned highways higher than those of commercial highways? My explanation is that government loan repayment of highways is led by the government. Since there is no profit target, it will lead to various wastes in its production and operation process and its cost cannot be controlled. This is not the case with commercial expressways. The purpose of building expressways is to make a profit, so they will have incentives to save costs as much as possible. Even if these companies are state-owned, it will have various incentives to do so. If we consider that many operators of commercial expressways in China are listed companies, they have the obligation to perform information disclosure and accept shareholder supervision. This external pressure will also force them to improve their operating standards and strive to reduce costs.

In fact, the difference between government loan-repaying roads and commercial roads is not only reflected in the operating process, but also reflected in investment decisions.

Operating toll roads are based on profit targets, so possible future profits will be considered more when establishing projects. However, there is no such requirement for government loan repayment roads - the government's goal is to build roads, and whether it is profitable or not does not matter. Within the scope of consideration, and for many local governments, building roads is a political achievement, so there will be more incentives to build roads. So we discovered such a strange phenomenon. In 2014, Anhui Province's GDP was about 1.17 times that of Shaanxi Province, and its population was about 1.727 times that of Shaanxi Province. However, the highway mileage of Shaanxi Province was 1.27 times that of Anhui Province. Perhaps many people will use the fact that the area of ??Shaanxi Province is larger than that of Anhui to justify the fact that the mileage of toll roads in Shaanxi Province is higher than that of Anhui. However, in my opinion, even if this excuse is true, it cannot explain that the investment cost per unit mileage in Shaanxi Province will be The only explanation for Anhui's 2.24 times is that the government has stronger soft budget constraints for repaying highway loans.

To reduce the losses of toll roads, the most practical way may be to turn toll roads into for-profit operating roads instead of non-profit government loan repayment roads. This conclusion sounds a bit bizarre, but it is a realistic portrayal. At the same time, this also means that the current call by many people to reduce toll roads and return them to public welfare may be wrong. If toll roads return to "public welfare" and no longer charge fees, their operating costs will increase significantly. Taxpayers may have to shoulder more costs.