Motorway tolls will increase by an average of 0.92% in 2025, a rate lower than the inflation forecast by the Bank of France, a source close to the matter learned on Friday afternoon. This average increase is also “lower” than the increase in tolls in 2018 and 2019, “that is, before the health crisis and before the energy shock linked to the war in Ukraine,” said this source on condition of anonymity, confirming the figures revealed by the newspaper The Parisian. When contacted, those around the Minister Delegate in charge of Transport, François Durovray, also confirmed these elements.
This increase applied every February 1, a recurring political-economic soap opera, had been around 3% on average this year and 4.75% in 2023, a consequence in particular of inflation. The Banque de France currently estimates that the price increase will reach 1.5% next year. In addition to inflation, the annual evolution of toll road prices is calculated based on the investment plans of the concessionaire companies.
A Senate report recommends a profound reform of the toll model
On November 13, François Durovray declared himself determined to “reinvent the model” of highways once the current concessions have ended, after a meeting with those in charge. The ministry then announced that a conference on the future of mobility financing planned for early 2025 would address the issue of “motorway network management”. The end of the main concessions is scheduled between 2031 and 2036.
On October 23, a report presented to the Senate recommended maintaining highway tolls at the end of the current concessions, which are very profitable for their managers, but thoroughly reforming their model, reducing the duration of the contracts and the number of kilometers of each a. concession to avoid the control of a handful of big players. The price of tolls could remain stable, but a part of the amounts collected could be dedicated to the maintenance of non-concessioned motorways, deteriorating national roads or the railway network, according to this report by the centrist Eure senator Hervé Maurey.
In 2015, Ségolène Royal, then Minister of Ecology, obtained a price freeze, but it was counteracted by increases from 2019 to 2023 within the framework of an agreement that also provided for an extension of concessions and a 3.2 billion highway recovery plan of euros.
Source: BFM TV
