Freeway holidays are not reasonable

The State Council promulgated the "Implementation Plan for Exempting Small Passenger Car Tolls for Major Holidays" which took effect on National Day in 2012. This year's Labor Day has been implemented four times and a complete cycle has been run. The free policy has led to various arguments. However, most of its sins and non-crimes have not been demonstrated from the perspective of the market economy, and it is still in a verbal battle.

According to statistics, during the 8-day National Day holiday of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2012, the national toll-free passenger car tolls amounted to 6.54 billion yuan, and the total number of travels for seven or less passenger cars increased by 1.5 times compared to the same period of last year. At the same time, free policies have also led to congestion on highways and declining revenues from highway operators.

From the perspective of economics, this measure is unreasonable and obviously contravenes the principle of market economy. The expressway is a special commodity. The operator is a company. The owner of the highway is the customer. Under normal circumstances, the government does not have the right to use an executive order to force companies to benefit consumers unless the company is suspected of monopoly or has a significant national and people's livelihood. The current free release method is the destruction of market mechanisms and excessive government intervention.

So, can we say that the highway does not require government regulation? of course not. It is necessary for the government to regulate highway tolls, but proper control measures should be taken. At present, the formation mechanism of government policies is too arbitrary and not scientific and normative. Free passage on holidays is against the laws of market economy.

Commodity prices must conform to changes in supply and demand, decrease as supply increases, and rise as demand increases. During the peak hours of the holiday season, the traffic volume of the expressway is large, which increases the management and maintenance costs of the road network, so the price should increase. At low peak hours, traffic is small and freeways should be deducted. In this way, the freeway can be effectively operated. Many highways in France are also charged, and they are never free even on holidays.

At the same time, highway holidays disrupted the signal effect of prices free of charge, resulting in misallocation of resources and reduced social welfare. Although the free policy saves the cost of small bus owners, it also brings congestion, slows traffic, and increases fuel consumption. Therefore, while the free policy is beneficial to some car owners, it may not be worth the benefit to other car owners. This part of the car owners is willing to pay in exchange for quick access, but is forced to reduce speed in return for free. In other words, the free policy undermines the signal that prices reflect the scarcity of resources.

How should we control the toll of monopolistic highways? The correct approach is to conduct regular price supervision under the anti-monopoly framework. Highways have a monopoly, so their fees must be regulated to make them transparent.

To supervise highway tolls, the following principles should be followed: First, highway operators have suspicions of profiteering. They must self-certify that their balance of payments does not make any profits. Otherwise, they should lower their fees and charges by government agencies such as the Price Bureau or the National Development and Reform Commission. Institutions are forced to determine rates based on the approved costs.

Secondly, the toll collection and repayment of highways must be open to setting deadlines, which should be implemented free after the loan is repaid.

Third, from the actual situation, we must reduce the toll standards for highways. In this way, it only reduces profits for highway management parties, rather than promoting losses, while it lowers logistics costs for society, which is conducive to economic prosperity and lowering. The cost of living of disadvantaged groups (commodity prices will be reduced due to lower logistics costs) will also help solve the problem of overloaded trucks.

Fourth, following the principle of equal service and charge, the highway should be required to provide adequate and high-quality services. For example, due to accidents caused by road barriers, accidents caused by wet weather, rain, snow, slippery weather, pedestrians walking, etc., should be taken up by the highway operator.