With the arrival of the holidays and the proximity of the month of January, tourists begin to arrive in the country and make use of the national routes. Despite having implemented a new system to make this transfer agile and practical for foreigners, complaints were not long in coming.
The Punta del Este Promotion and Tourism League informed The Observer that visitors claim to be paying for tolls that they do not use.
In the new operation in force since mid-2022, through the Tourist Pass, visitors arriving in Uruguay have a simple mechanism to cross the tolls, after having registered in the Telepeajes uy app. The passage through the tolls is controlled by reading their license plate, and the payment is made later in the collection networks.
Although currently the value of the toll is $122.5 if you go through the electronic toll booth and $160 in cash, “when they go to pay in the collection networks they are told that the minimum is $1,540, said the president of the league Santiago Osácar which gives an account of the claims that have been received in the two reporting centers that they manage in Punta del Este. This amount is discounted as more electronic tolls are used.
On the other hand, the tourist also has the possibility of paying the amount at the Telepeaje offices, but, according to Osácar, they do not accept cash there (which is a problem for those who do not want to use credit cards for these procedures) and the Hours of operation are until 6:00 p.m.
“As a League, we have raised it with the local authorities and through the Chamber of Tourism before the Ministry so that a solution can be quickly analyzed. On our side, the proposal is an exoneration in the toll abroad,” said Osácar.
For his part, the director of Tourism of Maldonado, Martín Laventure, confirmed that as a result of the implementation of the new electronic toll payment mechanism for tourists, some complaints were provoked because “they pay more tolls than they use.” “We are in contact with the authorities to correct it”said the director to The Observer.
Regarding the proposal of the Punta del Este Promotion and Tourism League that requests the exoneration of payment to foreign tourists, the director of Tourism recalled that the electronic toll is managed by a private company (Telepeaje). “The government has already taken measures as incentives, this may be one more, but you have to see who is asked if it is the private company or the government that takes charge,” Laventure explained and asserted that although This proposal needs to be studied. “Without a doubt, we must correct the situation that tourists are denouncing in terms of being charged for something that they do not use in its entirety.”
Laventure indicated that in recent days the issue was raised to the Ministry of Tourism for analysis and that a solution is being sought.
