TRAFFIC on toll roads in Spain has fallen to record lows – in fact, there has never been fewer cars on the motorways in the last 18 years.
The financial crisis, reducing the average inhabitant's income, combined with rising taxes and rocketing toll fees have all contributed to the quietest pay-to-use highways since 1996, according to traffic authority figures.
Toll roads bailed out by the State have seen the greatest fall in traffic volume which, as at the end of the first quarter of this year, stood at an average of 13,097 cars a day, having seen the worst month of March in nearly two decades.
Traffic on toll roads reached its peak in 2002 at 29,622 a day, although for the AP-7 motorway, which runs from the French border through to the Costa del Sol but is only tolled from Barcelona to the south of Alicante, the busiest year ever was 2007.
Little change in figures was seen until around 2010, when a gradual slowdown brought daily motor vehicle volume down to 24,354 a day, but the number of toll-road users has fallen steadily by around 3,000 a year since.
Now, the 13,097 average daily number of cars on these roads is lower than it was in the second half of 1996.
And the State toll road network has nearly doubled in size by then from 1,733 kilometres to 2,560 kilometres – meaning in real terms, drivers who use these motorways are at the lowest numbers ever.
Figures have been taken from the year 1993, in the early days of tolls and motorways – as at the start of that year, an average of 11,977 drivers used them daily.
Those which have seen the greatest reduction in traffic are the AP-36 from Ocaña to La Roda and the R-4, both in Madrid, in that order, followed by the AP-41 Madrid-Toledo road, the R-5, R-3 and R-2 motorways on the Madrid city ringroad, and the Alicante bypass.
Only the AP-7 between Cartagena (Murcia) and Vera (Almería) and the airport interchange near San Javier (Murcia) on the M-12 have seen an increase in the numbers of drivers.
