According to Sapo news, the tolls on the 25 de Abril and Vasco da Gama bridges will undergo an update, at the beginning of next year of 3.6%, according to the September inflation indicators from INE (National Institute of Statistics).
Therefore, the increase for Class 1 can vary between 5 and 10 cents for the two crossings of the Tagus River, although the final values will be proposed by the concessionaire in December, based on the rounding rule, the newspaper 'Observador' highlighted today which was cited by Sapo news.
Lusoponte's concession contract has as a reference for increases in the value of year-on-year inflation until September without housing, which reached 3.5% in 2023. However, the decree-law that introduced a brake on the increase is still in force, which limited the increase in tolls to 4.9%, below the 10% recorded.
The difference was compensated by the concessionaires and the State – to compensate, a transitional toll update regime was introduced that allows for more significant increases in the following years. Thus, in the first four annual updates, dealers can add 0.1 percentage points to the current update.
On the part of the Government, the online newspaper recalled, there is no indication that it will intervene in this increase. João Galamba, Minister of Infrastructures, indicated that in the State Budget proposal for 2024, the accounts of the public road sector and Infrastructures of Portugal point to toll revenues as a “consequence of the update of inflation rates considered”.
So the vendor wants to increase bridge tolls yet Portugal wants to increase car taxes to offset tolls. How does this fuzzy math work again?
By A V from Algarve on 19 Oct 2023, 19:19