People who drive in Tokyo may have had a rude shock on April 1 when a new toll system went into effect for the Shuto Expressway, the road network that crisscrosses the city from on high. Though the changes had been publicized beforehand, they are perhaps only comprehensible in practice. Tolls on all routes became more expensive, but cheaper alternatives are available.

According to the March 29 edition of the Asahi Shimbun, the main purpose of the new pricing system is to “unify” tolls throughout the Shuto Expressway network in terms of distance traveled. Before April 1, the maximum toll was ¥930. It is now ¥1,300, but the amount you pay is now ¥36.6 per kilometer for a standard-size car, an increase of about ¥10 on average, with the lowest rate at ¥300. Larger vehicles pay more and so-called kei jidōsha mini-cars slightly less.

The Metropolitan Expressway Co. says that it was receiving complaints from drivers who were paying the same high tolls regardless of the distance they were traveling on the expressway, so the new system should be fairer. At the same time, the company wants to relieve congestion, and there are new conditions that act as incentives to that end, the main one being that drivers who do not have the ETC automatic toll transfer system installed in their vehicle, and thus have to stop at toll booths to pay cash, will be charged the maximum rate of ¥1,300 regardless of how far they drive on the expressway.

People who stop at tollbooths are a major cause of traffic jams on all expressways. The transportation ministry told the Asahi that every weekday, on average, there are 100 traffic jams on the Shuto network of at least 4 km in length that last an hour, and the new toll system is designed to effect a “more efficient distribution” of vehicles by setting toll booths only at on-ramps and off-ramps, rather than every 6 km, which was the original method.

Another way to relieve congestion is to get drivers to use alternate routes, namely loop highways like the Gaikan Expressway and the unfinished Ken-O Expressway. If a vehicle gets on the Ken-O at Atsugi in Kanagawa Prefecture and gets off at Kuki in Saitama Prefecture without leaving the Ken-O, it costs ¥3,310, as opposed to ¥3,550 if the vehicle used the Shuto part of the way. Before the new system went into effect, the Ken-O route was ¥3,770 and the Shuto route ¥3,180. However, that’s if you pay cash. If you use ETC, the savings may not mean as much. Get on the Ken-O at Hachioji in western Tokyo and get off at Sakura Shiura in Ibaraki Prefecture and you pay the same with ETC, ¥3,630, regardless of whether or not you took the Shuto part of the way.

But it’s not clear how much time you would save by using the Shuto Expressway to get from one side of the city to the other. In terms of distance, the Shuto is shorter, but there’s more congestion — unless everybody is either using ETC or a good portion are taking alternate routes. In other words, the efficacy of the new system in easing congestion is impossible to determine until a certain number of drivers start taking advantage of it.

In any event, anyone who drives regularly on expressways probably already has an ETC device installed in their vehicle. Most of the problems associated with the technology when it became widespread in 2001 have been solved: Cameras are more sensitive, gates more responsive, and commercial vehicles can get receipts quickly rather than having to wait until the end of the month when their credit card bills arrive.

Nevertheless, ETC has always been something of a racket, since electronics companies sell the devices at a profit. Now, the various highway corporations are promoting ETC 2.0, a new system that provides more detailed information about congestion and other traffic conditions. Given that smartphone apps, not to mention on-board navigation systems, can do pretty much the same thing, it’s not clear if people who already have ETC in their cars are going to pay ¥20,000-30,000 for a new one. And people who are buying an ETC device for the first time can get one for as low as ¥5,000 on Amazon if they don’t need 2.0 features. As an incentive, the transport ministry is offering a ¥10,000 rebate to the first 50,000 people who buy a 2.0 device. The offer started on March 10 and will end either on June 30 or when the 50,000 limit is reached, whichever comes first.

Even with ETC, Japan’s expressway system remains by far the most expensive in the world. In the U.S. and most European countries, the majority of expressways are free. In France, an EU country with a fair number of toll roads, drivers pay the equivalent of about ¥1,000 for every 100 km. In Japan it’s three times that amount.

People of a certain age may remember how the government once pledged that the toll system would be temporary. Once the cost of building the expressway network was paid off, they’d be made free. In fact, both the Meishin (Nagoya-Osaka) and Tomei (Tokyo-Nagoya) expressways were paid off long ago, but in 1972 the government decided to pool the debt for all the roads, meaning that all tolls go to pay off this debt, regardless of which expressway you use.

According to Japan’s Business Journal, the debt will never be paid off, especially now that all the highway corporations have been privatized. In the early 2000s, the debt associated with the expressway network was ¥43 trillion. The job of paying off this debt was transferred to a newly formed independent corporation, which collects money for that purpose from the various highway corporations. As a result, those corporations don’t carry any of this debt on their books.

In theory, once the debt is paid, tolls will be finished, but the original 45-year repayment plan has since been extended to 60 years “to incorporate expenses for repairs of older expressways,” the Journal reports. Meanwhile, new ones are being built, regardless of their usefulness, and they cost a lot of money due to Japan’s mountainous terrain and the difficulties involved with purchasing land, two factors that also drive up the cost of maintenance, since the majority of Japanese expressways are elevated. And since there is no competition, there are no natural checks on costs.

But even though the various highway corporations enjoy a captive clientele, the transport ministry regulates everything and reserves the right to appoint their presidents. Also, these corporations are not allowed to derive profits from tolls. They can only make money from ancillary sources, such as leasing concessions for rest stops.

So the toll system is not really the money-printing machine it appears to be, but rather a means of keeping a lot of organizations, private and public, financially viable, even if a good part of their job is to administer the system.

Yen for Living covers issues related to making, spending and saving money in Japan on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. For related online content, see blog.japantimes.co.jp/yen-for-living.