The government on June 28 started making part of the nation's expressway system toll free. The trial — which is being carried out along 50 sections of 37 routes mainly in the countryside, and covers 1,652 km or about 20 percent of the expressway system — could eventually lead to an entirely toll-free system.
Traffic volume in those sections on July 3 and July 4, the first Saturday and Sunday of the trial, increased 67 percent and 78 percent, respectively. On the preceding weekdays, traffic volume was 73 to 80 percent greater than usual.
The reason that the increases were smaller on Saturday and Sunday than on the preceding weekdays is that even before the trial started, traffic volume had already increased because of the Saturday-Sunday ¥1,000 cap on ordinary cars that the Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito administration introduced. On average, traffic volume on ordinary highways running parallel to expressways dropped about 20 percent.