Breaking Down the New Toll Formula
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has amended the National Highways Fee Rules to introduce a new method for calculating tolls on certain highway sections. Previously, the cost of building expensive structures like bridges, tunnels, and elevated
roads was recovered by applying a heavy multiplier to their length—often treating 1 km of a bridge as 10 km of a regular road for tolling purposes. The new rule introduces a cap to prevent excessive charges. Now, authorities must calculate the tollable distance in two ways and apply whichever is lower: either ten times the length of the structures plus the remaining road, or a simple five times the total length of the entire highway section. This creates a hard ceiling, ensuring tolls on these advanced corridors don't become unreasonably high.
Why Was This Change Necessary?
The primary goal is to make tolling fairer for commuters. The old formula, designed to recoup the high construction costs of complex infrastructure, sometimes led to disproportionately high toll charges on relatively short stretches of road. For example, a highway passing through hilly terrain with numerous tunnels or an expressway built on elevated pillars could end up with a chargeable length far exceeding its actual distance, discouraging drivers from using it. By introducing a fivefold cap, the government aims to balance the need to fund infrastructure with making these state-of-the-art roads more affordable and accessible for daily commuters and commercial transport. This move is expected to encourage more drivers to use these safer, faster routes instead of congested local roads.
How Will This Affect Your Wallet?
For most drivers on these specific types of highways, the new rule is good news. It is expected to lead to a reduction in toll charges. To understand the impact, consider a hypothetical 40-km highway section that consists entirely of bridges and elevated structures. Under the old system, its chargeable length could have been calculated as 400 km (40 km x 10). With the new rule, the chargeable length is capped at 200 km (40 km x 5), effectively halving the toll. In another scenario, for a 40-km highway with 10 km of structures and 30 km of regular road, the chargeable length is now 130 km instead of 200 km. The exact savings will vary depending on the highway, but the principle remains: the cap prevents the toll from spiraling upwards just because of the presence of structures.
Which Highways Are Covered?
This rule change doesn't apply to every national highway. It specifically targets sections that contain independent structures like bridges, tunnels, flyovers, or elevated corridors. Structures that are 60 meters or shorter are excluded and will not be treated separately in the calculation. The policy will be implemented gradually. For existing publicly funded toll plazas, the new formula will apply from the next scheduled date of fee revision. For highways operated by private concessionaires under a Build-Operate-Transfer model, the changes will likely take effect only after the concession period ends and the project is transferred back to the government. All newly built toll plazas on such structure-heavy corridors will adopt this formula from day one.
