In an interview, Tuo Qingming, deputy to the National People's Congress and director of the Education Examination Institute of Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, put forward very constructive adjustment suggestions for the current toll-free highway policy. He believes that free highways may be piloted with a dual-track system to truly return the right of choice to car owners.
Tuo Qingming suggested that the current toll-free policy for small passenger vehicles on major holidays should be adjusted to a toll-free model based on annual fixed mileage. He proposed to set a unified annual free travel mileage of 3,000 kilometers for non-operating small passenger cars with 7 seats or less across the country.
In terms of specific implementation ideas, he supports the adoption of a dual-track pilot system, that is, during the policy transition period, users can make independent choices based on their own needs.Car owners can choose to maintain the existing holiday free plan, or apply to switch to the annual fixed mileage free plan.
This 3,000-kilometer quota setting did not come out of thin air, but was a balance point reached by Tuo Qingming through extensive research and data calculations. This figure refers to the median annual high-speed mileage of Chinese family cars and strives to cover the basic travel needs of most families for a year.
This plan fully considers the balance between the sustainability of the policy and the intensity of benefiting the people. The 3,000 kilometers of free quota can not only meet the long-distance return home needs of most families during long holidays, but can also effectively alleviate the abnormal congestion on highways during holidays and encourage off-peak travel.
For those residents who usually use cars less frequently, the 3,000-kilometer quota allows them to enjoy policy dividends even if they do not get together on holidays. For users with extremely high mileage, the excess will be charged according to the standard, which is more in line with the principle of fairness of using more, paying more.
Tuo Qingming emphasized that the core purpose of this proposal is to find a balance between high-frequency users and low-frequency users. Through flexible policy design, everyone can share benefits according to actual needs, thereby truly realizing the optimal allocation and enjoyment of transportation resources.
