Highway travel on several stretches across India could soon become cheaper after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) introduced a new formula for calculating toll charges on roads that include
expensive infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels, flyovers and elevated corridors. The revised method changes the way tollable distance is computed, potentially reducing the fee that motorists pay on such stretches by as much as 40 per cent in many cases.
The change comes through an amendment to the National Highways Fee Rules. NHAI has directed its field offices to begin revising toll notifications in line with the new formula.
What Was The Old Toll Calculation Rule?
Until now, highway users paid a significantly higher toll for stretches built on costly engineering structures such as bridges, tunnels, elevated roads and flyovers.
For toll calculation, every 1 kilometre of such structures was treated as 10 kilometres of normal highway because of their much higher construction and maintenance costs.
Example:
- Length of elevated/tunnel stretch: 10 km
- Tollable distance under old rule: 10 × 10 = 100 km
This meant motorists often paid disproportionately high tolls even when the actual length of the elevated or tunnel section was relatively short.
What Has Changed In Highway Toll Calculation?
Under the amended rules, NHAI will calculate toll using whichever of the following two values is lower:
- Ten times the length of the structures, or
- Five times the total length of the highway section, including both the structures and the regular road.
In other words, the toll authority must choose the lower figure while determining the tollable distance, reducing the burden on commuters. Structures measuring 60 metres or less will not be counted separately under this formula.
How Does The New Calculation Work?
Consider a highway section where:
- Total project length = 40 km
- Elevated roads, bridges and tunnels = 10 km
- Regular highway = 30 km
Old Formula
Tollable distance = 30 km + (10 × 10) = 130 km
New Formula
- Option 1: 10 × structure length = 100 km
- Option 2: 5 × total highway length = 5 × 40 = 200 km
Since the lower value is chosen, the toll will now be calculated on 100 km instead of 130 km, translating into a reduction of around 23 per cent in the tollable distance.
Who Stands To Benefit?
The biggest beneficiaries will be motorists using highways dominated by expensive engineering structures, including long tunnels, sea bridges and elevated urban corridors. These projects involve much higher construction costs than conventional highways and have traditionally attracted higher tolls.
The revised formula aims to strike a balance between recovering infrastructure costs and making highway travel more affordable for commuters. Once revised toll notifications are issued for individual projects, users on eligible stretches should begin seeing lower toll rates.
