Milad Doosti, deputy of the Iranian regime’s Company for Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures, said that following the increase in highway tolls in Iran, the rate of increase for heavy vehicles has been set between 80% and 100%, while for passenger cars it has been capped at around 50%.
State-run Fars News Agency, on Wednesday, December 17, citing Doosti’s remarks and a report by the construction and development company, wrote that tolls on the Tehran–North highway have increased by about 43%, while tolls on the Pardis highway have risen by about 51%.
The Tehran–North highway, as one of the country’s main transportation routes, plays an important role in travel between the capital and the northern provinces.
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The new toll rates on this route are being implemented while many Iranian families use this highway for their trips, a factor that has doubled concerns over rising travel costs.
According to Fars, the Pol-e Zal–Andimeshk, Andimeshk–Khorramabad, and Khorramabad–Borujerd highways have also seen changes in toll rates, and the Lake Urmia causeway is among the routes whose tolls are now calculated at the new rates.
The state-run news agency added that some reports claiming a 120% increase in tolls on 10 highways across the country are not accurate.
While a 120% increase is being denied, the currently announced figures are already burdensome and worrying for many citizens, especially at a time when income levels do not keep pace with rising costs.
Critics say that even this level of change in tolls, without considering the economic pressure on households and transportation sector workers, reflects the continuation of policies whose main burden falls on the public, with no sign of fundamental reforms or effective accountability by responsible institutions.
Earlier, in Aban, Doosti had announced that “according to the law,” the average highway tolls had increased in the range of 37% to 43%, but on some highways that had not seen any rate changes in recent years, the increase had reached as high as 60%.
In an effort to justify the sharp rise in toll prices, he said the increase “could have been higher than this, but the government and the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development tried to keep it at a level that would not put pressure on the people while also improving service quality.”
In recent months, the deepening economic crisis, runaway inflation, and repeated record highs in foreign currency exchange rates have placed unprecedented pressure on people’s livelihoods.
At the same time, the government, unable to control these conditions, has shifted the costs of the crisis in various areas, including gasoline, onto citizens.
Previously, numerous reports had also been published about the increasing share borne by the public in paying healthcare costs.
