Road Toll Price Increase Becoming More Likely? – Roads of Serbia Record Drop in Turnover

In 2020, the Serbian corridors saw around eight million vehicles fewer and RSD 1.5 billion less in road toll collection than in 2019. A drop of 16.6% was recorded. In 2020, until December 24, there had been a total of 47,885,276 vehicles on the highways in Serbia. Passenger cars (first-category vehicles) accounted for 36,487,274, whereas freight vehicles (fourth category) accounted for 5,398,499.

Last year’s road toll collection, until December 24, amounts to RSD 25,301,200,042, whereas, in the same period in 2019, it was RSD 26,898,765,034, Novosti reports.

– The road toll revenue is lower by RSD 1,597,514,992, that is, by 5.94%. The sections Belgrade-Presevo-Dimitrovgrad, Belgrade-Sid and Belgrade-Subotica are recording lower vehicle traffic, with the biggest reduction in the number of cars recorded on the Belgrade-Sid section, by 25.17% – says the PE Roads of Serbia.

This is down to the pandemic, which has put the entire Europe under lockdown, which has in turn led to a lack of summer vacations and the consequent reduction of the number of vehicles on the south and the east branches of Corridor 10. As for the reduced traffic at the toll station toward Croatia, near Sid, the crucial factor is that neither the Serbian nor the Turkish diaspora traveled back home in 2020.

An average growth of the number of vehicles of around 5% had been recorded on Serbian roads in the preceding years. The data from the annual report of the PE Roads of Serbia show that, in 2019, a total of 56,878,438 vehicles passed through the 59 toll stations, whereas, a year before, there were 52,723,465. It was expected for the trend to continue, considering that, in the months preceding the epidemic, new sections were opened along Serbian corridors.

Closed toll collection systems were established on the highway from Doljevac to the border with North Macedonia on June 15, 2019, on the highway from Obrenovac to Preljina on September 1, 2019, and on the highways from Nis to Doljevac and from Nis to the North Macedonian border on January 16, 2020.

The 2020 Business Program of the PE Roads of Serbia projected toll revenues of RSD 29.5 billion, and RSD 25.3 billion was collected. They expected a growth of 13%, and, instead, a drop in revenues of 16.6% was recorded.

JP Putevi Srbije Beograd

Roads of Serbia

toll collection

toll price increase