Financing Iranian road infrastructure in the era of electric vehicles

Currently, proving sufficient funding for construction, maintenance, and operation of theroad infrastructure becomes a worldwide challenge. Additionally, the outbreak of electricvehicles (EV), through several channels, exacerbates the problem considerably. Iran is acountry that already faces severe shortfalls in appropriate financing of its road network.Analyzing the impacts of EV on funding the road infrastructure in Iran, however, is morecomplex than many other countries. Historically, the economy of Iran depends heavily onthe oil revenue. Moreover, the country substantially subsidizes the fossil fuels. Theinteractions among EV and these factors affect the funding of the road infrastructure systemin Iran. This paper investigates these interactions in more details, and proposes severalfunding mechanisms to deal with the specific situation of Iran. Overall, introducing newpublic funding schemes to finance the road infrastructure in Iran seems inevitable. Thepaper proposes exploiting several sources of funding, including various methods to chargethe road users, and value capture mechanisms.