According to the road company’s figures, motorists forked out 28.2 million euros in 2014 to use the A22 motorway, up 4.5 million euros on the total revenue taken the year before.
The amount means that the bill on taxpayers across Portugal to support the maintenance and use of the motorway has been reduced by 47 percent compared with when it was totally free to use.
The A22 has seen receipts grow by 38 percent since toll gantries were erected in 2012, and has also seen year-on-year traffic on the route increase by 19 percent in 2014.
With the num-ber of police and journalists almost outnumbering protestors, last weekend’s protest once again focused more on motorists being given a viable alternative to the A22. Local council representatives argued that they are not against the user-payer principle, but that those using the EN125 alternative are faced with numerous and lengthy stretches of road which are in need of urgent repair.
In related news, a 23-year-old man died over the weekend and two more were injured, one of whom seriously, in an accident on the final south-bound stretch of the A2 motorway that connects the Portuguese capital with the Algarve.
The accident occurred on kilometre 199 of the motorway shortly after the final fuel stop and only a few kilometres from where a truck driver died last Thursday after losing control of his truck which rolled over and caught fire.