National Highways Authority (NHA) have increased the toll tax rates of motorway M2, the motorway which connects Islamabad to Lahore. The new rates have took effect immediately on August 25, 2023. The new rates are as follows.
| Vehicle Types | End to End Amount | Per KM Rate (Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Cars, Jeeps & Pickups | Rs. 1100 | 3.07 |
| Vans | Rs. 1840 | 5.15 |
| Coasters | Rs. 2590 | 7.22 |
| Coaches | Rs. 3690 | 10.29 |
| Trucks | Rs. 4800 | 13.39 |
| Trailers | Rs. 6170 | 17.22 |
People are already not happy with how deterioration in the local currency and other factors are resulting in the increase in fuel prices. Which results in overall increase in the travel and transportation costs. This new increase in the toll taxes will further add to the difficulties of people as it will result in further increase in the travel and transportation costs.
People do have other option to travel via Grand Trunk (GT) road. However, the road quality of GT road is very low as compared to motorway and there are broken patches of road. Too much traffic, people crossing the roads and local cities traffic also slows down the travel while going on GT road. Good thing about the motorways is, these are fenced roads, means people or animals cannot enter the roads from either side for crossing. Also due to few entry and exit points, there is no local city traffic.
So, because of being fully isolated, these motorways in Pakistan do reduce the travel time to minimum. However, in these difficult times for people of Pakistan, when inflation rates and fuel prices are too high, the motorway toll taxes must only be increased if they are absolutely required.
On the other hand, the maintenance of roads like motorways do have high costs, so administration may have been struggling with covering those costs, so they may have took this step for that reason. One alternate way could be to increase the challan/ticket prices for violators of traffic rules on motorways, this will not only increase the revenue for the authorities but also will help reduce these violations.