Thursday, Apr 15, 2010
Gulf News
Sharjah The new toll system for trucks in Sharjah is likely to result in a price hike for commodities, especially building materials.
Truck drivers said they were not willing to bear the cost of the heavy toll and would rather pass it on to their clients.
"It is not viable for us at all to bear this heavy toll fee and we will start charging this amount from our customers," Chaudhry Zafar, owner of a leading transport company in Sharjah, which runs more than 100 trucks in the emirate, said.
He added that their revenues have already gone down due to reduced rental charges paid by customers.
Sharjah announced its plans to install toll gates on Al Dhaid bypass road also known as ‘truck road'.
It is mandatory for all trucks using the Sharjah-Al Dhaid road to divert to this particular road and pay a toll of Dh100 each time they cross the toll gate.
Trial run
The toll fee will be levied from May 1 and the trial run will start from April 18 instead of an earlier announced date of April 15, since the toll gates were not ready until April 14.
Kabir Khan, a truck driver, told Gulf News that the fee should be a fixed at Dh100 if a toll is to be charged at all.
He said that he would end up paying around Dh200 to Dh300 per trip because he drives a bigger truck which carries stones and building material weighing up to 60 to 70 tonnes.
A toll fee of Dh100 is set to be levied on trucks whose weight does not exceed 49 tonnes, while an additional Dh10 would be levied for each extra tonne.
"This high toll will definitely lead to a higher transportation cost which will ultimately be imposed on consumers," a leading building material company manager said on condition of anonymity.
"We will end up paying a toll of at least Dh6,000 per truck every month and it will definitely be a big dent on our revenue," he added.
Gulf News surveyed the area yesterday and found that the ‘truck road' which already witnesses several kilometres of heavy traffic is likely to get more congested after the toll gates are introduced.
This is because the fees will be collected manually.
Every truck running from Fujairah, Al Dhaid, Masafi, Khor Fakkan, Kalba and Ras Al Khaimah to Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and vice versa would need to pass through this toll-controlled road, built especially for trucks.
No traffic issues
However, motorists not using trucks will face no traffic issues as they can still use the main Sharjah-Al Dhaid road.
Trucks using this road are loaded mostly with construction material such as heavy stones, pebbles, cement and sand.
This road is also used by trucks getting water from Masafi, in addition to containers and tankers transporting goods from Khor Fakkan and Fujairah ports to Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The toll-controlled ‘truck road' is linked to the Sharjah-Al Dhaid highway on one side and the Sharjah-Masafi Road and Ras Al Khaimah-Manama road on another side.
According to the announcement made by the Department of Public Works in Sharjah, trailers without containers will be charged Dh25 for each trip.
A Dh10,000 fine will be levied for causing damage to property at the toll gate, in addition to the cost incurred for repairs.
A fine of Dh2,000 will be collected from drivers who block traffic at the gates.
Around 4,400 trucks and heavy vehicles pass through Al Sharjah-Al Dhaid road every day, which amounted to two million trucks in 2009.
Given the number of trucks using this road, Sharjah will collect around Dh500,000 daily from the toll system.
The main objective of levying the toll system was to collect revenues to repair and maintain roads, badly damaged by heavy traffic.
By Ashfaq Ahmed
Gulf News 2010. All rights reserved.
