Driver Evading Highway Tolls 887 Times... All Fees Will Be Collected

▲ Private highway unpaid toll fee enforcement procedure (Provided by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 19th that, as a result of the first pilot project for the forced collection of unpaid tolls on private expressways implemented since November last year, approximately 140 million KRW in unpaid tolls were collected from 361 cases with more than 100 unpaid instances.

This project was conducted under the 'Agreement on the Efficiency of Unpaid Toll Collection' signed between the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Private Road Management Support Center of the Korea Transport Institute, and 18 private expressway corporations. It targeted 715 cases out of 1,455 with more than 100 unpaid tolls, where addresses or contact information were secured and forced collection notices could be issued.

As of this month, 361 cases have been fully collected, with amounts ranging from 59,400 KRW to 3,852,630 KRW. The largest unpaid amount was from a user who missed 537 toll payments, and the highest number of unpaid instances was 887 times, totaling 1,067,100 KRW. The northern section of the Seoul Ring Expressway recorded the highest collection performance with 176 cases.

The forced collection was conducted in accordance with the 'Toll Road Act,' following procedures for forced collection of taxes and non-tax revenues, proceeding through the stages of 'forced collection notice → electronic deposit seizure → collection.' The collected tolls, after deducting all costs related to notification messages, SMS, and bill issuance, are allocated to each private corporation.

Meanwhile, the Ministry plans to proceed with criminal charges against those who received the forced collection notice but still did not pay the tolls. Using the expressway without paying the toll may constitute the crime of 'fraudulent use of convenience facilities' under the Criminal Act, punishable by imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of up to 5 million KRW, detention, or a penalty.

The reason the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has directly intervened in collecting unpaid tolls on private expressways is that the collection rate by private expressway operators dropped from 88.2% in 2012 to about 77.7% in 2018. Unlike the Korea Expressway Corporation, which directly holds the authority to forcibly collect unpaid tolls on its managed roads, private expressways lack this authority and must entrust the Ministry for collection. The collection rate for unpaid tolls on government-operated expressways was much higher, at 94.3% in 2012 and 92.3% in 2018, compared to private expressways.

After evaluating and supplementing the first pilot project, the Ministry plans to launch a second pilot project in the second half of this year targeting cases with more than 50 unpaid tolls. Through the pilot projects, they also intend to explore ways for expressway users to more easily check and pay unpaid tolls.

Kim Yong-seok, Director of the Road Bureau at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, stated, "In accordance with the toll management roadmap announced in 2018, we will continue to promote toll reductions on private expressways while managing and supervising the use of collected unpaid tolls through forced collection to enhance the convenience and safety of expressways."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.