Autostrade per l’Italia, which manages half of the Italian network, announces that the “discount” applied has expired on July 1st: the increase in rates is 1.36%
We will not have the increase in motorway tolls averted at the last minute from the withdrawal of the amendment wanted by vice -premier Salvini, but in the meantime we have already had one, regularly communicated but in fact passed a little in silence: From 1 July, in fact, the rates increased by 1.31% on the network of Autostrade per l’Italiathe main manager of our paid arteries with about 3,000 kilometers of track which include all main paths, from the Sun motorway to the Adriatic Bologna-Taranto. It is the consequence of the end of the application of the “generalized discount for users”, foreseen by the agreement between the company and the State, which should have ended already on 1 January last and which, at the request of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, had been extended for another six months, until 30 June last.
the five -year plan
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The tariff reduction of 1.35% was part of a five -year industrial plan launched the 1 January 2020 which provided for conspicuous investments by Autostrade per l’Italia, which became public property after the tragedy of the Morandi bridge and the exit from the Benetton family, for the maintenance and improvement of the network until the end of the current concession, scheduled for 2038. The plan included thousands of inspections and checks of bridges, viaducts and galleriesmade necessary and urgent by the collapse of Genoa, and important investments for improving network safety. At the same time, the plan introduced a blocking of tariff increases, until then calculated on the basis of a mathematical formula that have proved to be all too favorable for the managers of the motorways over the years and, therefore, questioned by the transport authority (whose reformulation of concession contracts was however applicable only to new concessions and not to those in progress). In recent years the plan has translated into the presence of countless construction sites on the ASPI network, indispensable for the checks and consolidation interventions of enchanted galleries and viaducts, but also a source of great inconvenience for users, especially in areas such as Liguria characterized by a strong presence of this type of infrastructure. At this point, even if not all the works have ended, the clauses have taken place and the tolls on the ASPI network have increased, on the eve of the great summer exodus.
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