ASECAP Conference

Welcome everyone!

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the ASECAP Conference.

This is an excellent forum for discussing and exchanging experiences with professionals from other countries.

I am also glad to see that the conference programme covers a wide variety of themes related to the transport sector.

I am pleased to have been able to participate in the many different road building projects during my six months as council of state.

Our country seems to grow smaller every time a new tunnel, bridge or roadway is finished, and our country becomes a better place to live.

We need to continue the task of national development. Our national infrastructure is not yet complete.

And we have much to gain from constructing roads that improve traffic safety, accessibility and road capacity –also ensuring sustainable environmentally friendly development.

The Norwegian central government is responsible for Norway's national road system. It is also responsible for ensuring that the county governments have adequate finances to care for the county road network.

Important principles for the use of road tolls in Norway
Financing road construction using toll money has become a very important supplement to ordinary state road allocations.

This tradition was established on the idea of joint efforts and a strong desire to complete projects that are important to local citizens and businesses.

Despite great increases in state funding, local governments often wish to use toll money to make projects go faster.

This is why the National Transport Plan for the coming 10 years will use the potential of existing toll-based projects as long as there is local political support for this.

We adhere to the principle that those who will benefit from a project should pay for it. This is also in accordance with European regulations in this area.

There is no financial ceiling established for the total number of toll-based projects that can be initiated. We still believe an assessment must be made in each particular project so the strain of toll-based financing is not too great for local citizens.

We currently run different kinds of toll-based projects. We often see that toll money is very useful for financing bridge and tunnel construction that will replace existing ferry connections.

In this way the different areas of our country become more united and interconnected, and our citizens are freer to travel when and where it suites them.

With projects that aim to replace ferry connections, the goal is to supplant a system of constant payment with one limited to a short period of time.

Toll money has traditionally been used to finance road construction, but is now developing in the direction of also financing more public transport measures.

In urban areas, the use of toll money is able to reduce the use of automobiles and can help finance better public transport.

The relationship between paying a toll in urban areas and understanding the usefulness that the programme has for society is not always apparent.

Toll money provides an indirect value because development in a city often helps traffic flow quicker in other areas.

The main rule is that toll-based projects should be financed 50 % by toll money, and that the maximum length of time for applying a toll is 15 years.

It is also important to keep toll fees as low as possible. In general, it can be said that toll money represents about 12 % of a project's income.

We will be working continually to keep these costs as low as possible.

Developments now point to the use of automated toll stations. This can reduce administrative costs that affect how high tolls will be.

I am also working hard to solve problems related to the protection of personal data.

I see that we have visitors from the EU Commission here today. I am still fighting to uphold Norway's right to keep today's discount rate of 20-50%, despite the EU Directive that would like to stop this.

In a country like Norway that depends on ground transport for business and industry, it would be very unfortunate if we were not able to keep these discounts.

There is also very little or no international traffic on the roads in question. We have established a 13 % Rule for the roads that do have a great deal of international traffic. 

Conclusion
For many people, toll roads and other user-based payment systems for the use of roads seem to be a kind of double taxation.

We need to consider this and respect people's opinions.

There are many feelings tied to toll money, and some political parties are against the use of tolls – at least until these parties are actually in the position of governing themselves.

I am happy to say that with the use of toll money we are able to reach national goals for the transport sector faster; projects that would have taken much longer to finance if we only used ordinary funding.

The process now in place allows us to create better, safer and more effective roads in a shorter period of time!

Local communities often wish to establish collaborative projects together with the state to complete important projects faster, and I think this collective spirit and this way of thinking must not be abandoned!

We have more than 70 years of experience with toll-based financing in Norway, and this has given us invaluable experience.

I believe that this experience can be very useful to ASECAP and ASECAP's members.

I hope your days here will be useful and enjoyable! Thank you.