Motorway tolls will increase by 0.92% on average in 2025, a rate lower than that of inflation forecast by the Bank of France, we learned Friday evening from a source close to the matter.
This average increase is also “lower” to the increase in tolls in 2018 and 2019, “either before the health crisis and before the energy shock linked to the war in Ukraine”noted this source on condition of anonymity, confirming figures revealed by the newspaper Le Parisien.
Contacted by AFP, the entourage of the Minister Delegate in charge of Transport, François Durovray, also confirmed these elements.
“This decision is the result of a real battle that the minister led to defend the purchasing power of the French, as he knows the daily weight that mobility represents in the household budget”according to those around him.
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 motorway prices is calculated on the basis of the investment plans of the concession companies.
On November 13, Mr. Durovray said he was determined to “reinvent the model” highways at the end of the current concessions, after a meeting with their managers.
The ministry then announced that a conference on the future of mobility financing planned for early 2025 would integrate the issue of “motorway network management”. The end of the main concessions is planned between 2031 and 2036.
On October 23, a report submitted to the Senate recommended maintaining motorway tolls at the end of the current concessions, very profitable for their managers, but to reform their model in depth, by reducing the duration of the contracts and the number of kilometers of each concession to avoid the control of a handful of big players.
The price of tolls could remain stable, but part of the sums collected could be devoted to the maintenance of non-concessioned motorways, national roads which are deteriorating, or the railway network, according to this report by the centrist senator of Eure Hervé Maurey .
In 2015, Ségolène Royal, then Minister of Ecology, obtained a price freeze, but it was counterbalanced by increases from 2019 to 2023 as part of an agreement which also provided for an extension of concessions and a plan motorway recovery of 3.2 billion euros.
