If you have a TAG, paying its rental fee forever is equivalent to spending about $328,900 today. That was the calculation Eduardo Walker, a full professor at the School of Management at the Pontifical Catholic University (UC), presented in a letter published in El Mercurio, according to Emol.
The TAG, or electronic toll device, attaches to the windshield and allows tolls to be collected on urban highways without stopping. Highway concession operators officially charge $740 a month plus VAT for it. That amount is adjusted once a year according to the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and is paid in perpetuity.
Walker described his calculation as simplified. He excluded inflation and monthly interest and assumed a single annual payment of $8,880, equivalent to twelve monthly payments.
He then calculated how much money would need to be deposited in a bank to cover that amount every year, forever. He used an annual rate of 2.7% in UF, the rate on a 20-year Treasury bond. The result is what finance calls "present value": what an infinite series of future payments is worth today.
"Is $328,900 the market price of one of those little devices?" the academic asked.
His letter prompted further criticism in the same newspaper this Sunday. Francisco Frésard, a civil engineer and UC academic, estimated that the highways collect $3,300 million a month solely from renting out these devices.
According to Frésard, for moderate users, between 50% and 60% of TAG holders who spend about $50,000 a month on tolls, the rental fee represents around 1.8% of that spending. He argued that the system also secures revenue collection for concession operators and makes it more efficient. "If that benefit mainly favors concession operators, it is worth asking why its cost should fall on users," he wrote.
Lawyer Tomás Valdés, who holds a master's degree in Public Works, pointed to another charge: the $40,000 required if the device is not returned within 15 days after the service ends.
As a comparison, Valdés cited the SunPass system in the United States. There, a US$5 sticker is purchased at supermarkets and pharmacies and is not rented. There is also payment by license plate, with a camera photographing the plate and a monthly bill. In his view, that option is much cheaper than Chile's "absurd and expensive" daily pass, the alternative for driving without a TAG.
The criticism comes amid debate over the agreement President José Antonio Kast announced with Autopista Central. The deal cuts the base toll by 10% and peak-hour and congestion tolls by 25% starting in January 2027, in exchange for extending the concession by 20 months.
In a column in the same newspaper, economist Eduardo Engel warned that the discount "is not free," because highways are financed by the revenue they collect. He cited a 2015 paper coauthored by Minister of Public Works and Transport Louis de Grange, which estimates that cutting peak-hour tolls by 25% would increase traffic on Autopista Central by 12%.
A study by the Interdisciplinary Center for Data Science at Diego Portales University, published in mid-October, produced lower figures: an increase of 2.9% during peak and congestion periods, and 1.1% outside those periods.
Engel also warned that extending the concession would delay tenders to widen the highway, and that the agreement could set a precedent for negotiating reductions during election periods. Emol's report does not include responses from the concession operators or the Ministry of Public Works regarding the TAG charge.
