When Will All Highways Be Free of Charge?
2 Answers
The policy of free highway access is implemented during four major holidays each year: Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, Labor Day, and National Day. Below are the detailed arrangements for free highway access for vehicles: Spring Festival: Starts at 00:00 on New Year's Eve and ends at 24:00 on the sixth day of the lunar new year. Qingming Festival: Starts at 00:00 on April 2nd and ends at 24:00 on April 4th. Labor Day: Starts at 00:00 on April 30th and ends at 24:00 on May 2nd. National Day: Starts at 00:00 on October 1st and ends at 24:00 on October 7th. Applicable vehicles: Free access applies to small passenger vehicles with seven seats or fewer.
Currently, it's highly unlikely that national expressways will become completely toll-free in the short term. While the holiday toll-free policy does bring substantial benefits during statutory holidays, this is still limited to official vacation periods. If you do the math carefully, you'll realize that road construction and maintenance costs are staggering - last year alone, the debt balance of China's toll roads exceeded 7 trillion yuan. Completely abolishing tolls would be financially unsustainable. Honestly, rather than full exemption, I'd prefer more practical improvements like enhancing ETC passing efficiency and optimizing holiday toll-free periods.
