Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Authority, which manages three unprofitable toll roads linking the mainland and Shikoku, said Friday its accumulated losses for fiscal 2000 totaled 999 billion yen, up 75.8 billion yen from a year earlier.
Daily traffic volume in fiscal 2000 fell from 37,031 to 36,019 units compared to a year earlier, far below a 1997 projection of 50,320 units a day, the authority said.
In 1997, the toll road operator drew up a 50-year debt repayment plan assuming an annual traffic growth rate of 4 percent until 2020.
With traffic volume down over the first three years, the authority will be forced to revise its debt repayment plan.
Toll income came to 88.3 billion yen for fiscal 2000, down 200 million yen from the previous year.
Operation costs dropped 10.1 billion yen to 175.8 billion yen, mainly due to recent falls in interest rates, the authority said.