After food, bills and fuel come the motorway price increases. After the announcement by Aspi came the reaction of consumer associations
Alessandro Pinto
June 28
The season of price increases: after food, bills and fuel, Italian motorists will also have to deal with motorway price increases. In fact, from the end of June, Autostrade per l’Italia is preparing to increase the cost of tolls by 1.5%. In 2022, 98% of the motorway sections had remained immune to the adjustments traditionally envisaged at the beginning of each year, with the exception of the section of the A21 managed by Autovia Padana Spa, therefore only 105 kilometers out of a total of over 6,000 toll motorway networks . However, the increase in the costs of energy and raw materials pushed Autostrade per l’Italia to adjust the tariffs upwards. “We speak very little, we are discussing it at this stage with the ministry”, explained the managing director Roberto Tomasi during an event in Florence. “I remember that our rates have been frozen since 2018. In these first six months we have had a significant increase in terms of material costs which vary, on average, from 20 to 30%.” The decision, Aspi specifies in a note, is only in the preliminary phase and will be decided by the competent authorities after four years of blockade but is foreseeable on the basis of the calm rules provided by the Transport Regulation Authority. If the retouching goes through, it would therefore be another additional commitment for the pockets of the Italians, whose salaries, on the other hand, do not remain firm. Increases that affect many products and services, and that now, with the arrival of the summer holidays, also affect the motorway tariffs. So much so that the consumers of Assoutenti have announced an appeal to the Lazio TAR.
with your head held high
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The increase, added the CEO of Aspi, “would be foreseen in Autostrade’s economic and financial plan starting from the end of June-July of this year”, therefore it would not be a touch-up linked to expensive energy and materials. “We come out with our heads not high, very high – said Tomasi – compared to the increases that all the other commodities have had in this period. It is a ridiculous increase, linked to the approval of the economic and financial plan”. The prices of energy and raw materials, which rose after the invasion of Russia in Ukraine, also weighs on the numerous construction sites that Autostrade per l’Italia has around the country. For Tomasi, in fact, it is “a serious problem: in these first six months we have had an important increase in terms of material costs that vary from 20 to 30% on average, then there are price items with increases even higher than this”. Tomasi, however, specified that these additional expenditure items will not slow down the company’s investment plan. “It cannot be a mechanism with which we block our investments. On the contrary, we must continue to invest in the hope that there is also a speculative element in this phase that can somehow return, indeed we cannot but think about it”. Investments that were at the center of the seminar “The network of the future. Aspi dialogues with the territory” dedicated to the plan to upgrade and modernize the motorway network in Tuscany.
rates, how they work
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After the tragedy of the Morandi Bridge, the company cannot deliberately decide on the increase in motorway tariffs. With the Genoa decree, which has put the issue of improving infrastructures in the foreground, the determination of motorway tariffs follows a very specific procedure. The concessionaire company, in this case Autostrade per l’Italia, cannot apply the increases without having the approval of Art, the Transport Regulation Authority. Currently, according to what leaks from sources of the Ministry of Infrastructure and as confirmed by Autostrade itself, discussions are underway between the offices of the dicastery with Aspi.
June 28, 2022 – 10:10 am
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