Road Tolls or Fuel Taxes? Evolutionary Game Analysis of Toll Highway Policy Adjustment in China

The toll highway management regulations of China stipulates that the provisions of the toll roads’ toll period are 15–30 years. From 2017, toll highways of China will reach the “end of charging period”one after another. How to raise maintenance costs of these expired highways? Is it to lower toll rates and continue to collect “tolls”, or to turn to increase the fuel tax rates and collect“fuel taxes”? These are the key problems that urgently need to be solved in the current development of toll highways. This paper aiming at the “end of charging period” problem that toll highways of China will soon encounter, compared two policy adjustment modes, to lower the “road tolls” or to increase the “fuel taxes”, and thus proposed a “two steps” strategy. The first step is lowering toll rates and collecting tolls to raise the funds for maintenance and management in early “end of charging period” sections. The second step is readjusting policies when “end of charging period” sections reach a certain scale, and eventually, by taking the form of “fuel taxes”, achieving the maintenance and management of toll highways. The paper established an evolutionary game model, compared the lowering “tolls” rates and increasing “fuel taxes” rates, and went on simulation and analysis of “two steps” strategy. The results showed that “two steps” strategy forward toll highway policy adjustment step by step, which is conducive to enhancing the fairness of the charges, and implementing a “smooth transition” of policy adjustment. It is comparably more reasonable.