A decade after the nation's public expressway operators were privatized in October 2005, the interest-bearing debts left behind by Japan Public Highway Corp. and three other entities have been reduced from ¥37.4 trillion to ¥28.75 trillion. However, the plan envisaged in the 2004 law on the privatization — that all expressways would become toll-free by 2050 after all the debts were repaid — has already been pushed back by 15 years due to the flaws in the scheme that failed to take into account the obvious cost of renovating aging infrastructure. Even the new scenario of toll-free expressway networks in 2065 is in doubt because the need to update infrastructure will continue in the years ahead.

The government, which holds all of the shares in the three regional operators created through the breakup of Japan Public Highway — East, Central and West Nippon Expressway, should review the privatization scheme going forward, including the feasibility of the promised end of tolls. The question of whether the operators should be given greater autonomy in management should also be addressed.

The government-funded highway corporation was a target of widespread criticism as the breeding ground for vested interests linked to building and running the expressway networks, with debts mounting from the construction of toll roads with dubious profitability across Japan. Then in the early 2000s the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed to privatize Japan Public Highway along with the operators of the metropolitan expressway network in and around Tokyo, the Hanshin expressways around Osaka and those linking Honshu and Shikoku.