The Ministry of Transport recently issued the “Twelve Fiveth Five-Year Highway Maintenance Management Development Outline,” stating that by 2015, the country’s highway network toll collection will be basically realized, and the non-cash payment rate of the toll roads will reach 40%.

The outline pointed out that during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, according to the unified deployment of the State Council, the Government will continue to phase out the charging of second-level roads for government repayment and further control the total scale of toll roads and the number of toll stations. Combined with the special clean-up of toll roads, the phenomena of overdue and irrational charges will be completely cancelled, and the existing toll roads will be fully regulated and in compliance with the Regulations on the Administration of Toll Roads. At the same time, it revised the Regulations on the Administration of Toll Roads, further improved the development policy for toll highways, gradually formed a toll highway system with highway as the main body and a non-toll highway system with ordinary highway as the main body, and established a more reasonable adjustment of the toll period and toll standards. Mechanisms to promote the sustainable development of toll highway policies.

The outline points out that the operation and management of the expressway will be strengthened and standardized. To study and formulate expressway service norms, focus on strengthening government oversight of operating highways by industry authorities, and promote freeway networked electronic non-stop charges (ETCs).