Fuel prices stall expressway traffic

Tag : Fuel Oil Gas

As gas prices rise, Japanese drivers are putting the brakes ontheir use of expressways.
The companies that manage and charge tolls on expressways havereported a major year-on-year drop in road usage in June, and areunanimous in blaming high fuel prices.
According to East Nippon Expressway Co., which covers an area thatincludes Hokkaido, Tohoku and Kanto, a daily average of 2.34million vehicles used its expressways in June, down 4.9 percentfrom a year earlier.
The daily average for West Nippon Expressway Co., which mostlycovers the Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions, was 2.19million vehicles, down 4.1 percent.
Central Nippon Expressway Co., which mostly covers the Tokai andHokuriku regions, reported a 2.4-percent year-on-year decrease to1.605 million vehicles.
The drops for East Nippon and West Nippon were the largest sincethese companies, along with Central Nippon, were established inOctober 2005, after the privatization of Japan Highway Public Corp.
Central Nippon's decline was its fourth-largest decrease, but itsthree bigger drops were a result of heavy snowfalls, the companysaid.
Use of Shuto (metropolitan) Expressway and Hanshin Expressway,which are managed by other companies, is also down, as driversstung by fuel price increases seek to avoid the added cost oftolls.
In the year through June, the total length of expressways managedby East, Central and West Nippon companies increased by 40 to 60kilometers, or 1 to 2 percent. Previous increases in the length ofexpressways have led to a rise in the number of vehicles on theseroads.
For East Nippon and West Nippon, usage started decreasing late lastyear. The two companies suffered monthly year-on-year falls everymonth in the first half of 2008.
According to the Oil Information Center, gasoline prices startedrising late last year. The average gas price around the nation,which exceeded 150 yen per liter in November 2007, fell to 131 yenin April after the temporary, road-specific gasoline tax surchargeexpired on March 31. But after the tax was reintroduced, the priceshot back to 173 yen in June.
At the time of their inauguration, the three expressway companiespledged to repay about 40 trillion yen in debts, incurred for theconstruction of expressways, over the next 45 years.
If revenue from tolls continues to drop, it could affect their debtrepayment plans.
With the August Bon holiday season approaching, the three companiesforesee a 10-percent drop from last year in bumper-to-bumpertraffic 10 kilometers long or more.
However, a senior official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,Transport and Tourism predicts even less congestion than expectedon expressways this year, as more people will opt to travel ontrains.(IHT/Asahi: July 30,2008)