LThe motorway concession contracts privatized in 2005 will expire between 2031 and 2036; This is a historic moment not to be missed. It will mark the end of a successful public investment policy, decided in 1955 and financed through tolls paid by users and loans. A policy that could inspire the financing of the ecological transition.
The 1955 law provided for the end of tolls once the debt was repaid. This is what the Spanish government did: the motorway between France and Barcelona became free again in 2021.
In France, it has been several decades since the depreciated motorways (Lille-Paris-Lyon-Marseille) have retained their tolls to finance regional development axes where low traffic did not allow investments to be covered without calling for taxes. .
This technique, called backing, allowed the network to grow rapidly until 2005, before the privatization of the concession companies. These contributions were made possible thanks to the consent of users to continue paying an existing toll. This is quite the difference with the implementation of a fee on an initially free route (the failure of the “heavy goods toll” is still in people’s minds).
Even if backing in its historical form is no longer legally possible today, the acceptability of paying for the use of certain axes and the use of this revenue for investment must be preserved at the end of the concessions and oriented towards other needs. It is common for cities, at the end of parking concessions, to continue to charge users the same amount, after having changed the legal nature of the toll which then becomes a user fee or a tax. This approach, among others to be studied, could be applied to motorways after the end of the concessions.
The power to accelerate
Having recurring revenue over the very long term makes it possible to plan investments. This also makes it possible to accelerate urgent projects thanks to borrowing, with repayment being secured by these revenues.
During the Mobility Conference in 2017, the Union of Bridge, Water and Forest Engineers made public a study quantifying the issues: 16 billion euros in annual tolls collected at the end of the concessions, including 20% to 30% to maintain, operate and continue to invest in this network. If we cautiously retain only 50% of the 16 billion (the European directive known as Eurovignette will not allow the toll to be kept at the same price), this represents ten times the 800 million euros allocated every year, via a set of taxes, to the Société du Grand Paris (SGP) for the financing of the Grand Paris Express (GPE), i.e. around 50 billion (in current euros) invested over twenty years.
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