Brussels, 06/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - Sixteen months later than planned, a new automatic motorway toll system came into operation in Germany on 1 January for heavy goods vehicles. All lorries of 12 tonnes or more using the German motorway network are being charged 12.4 eurocents on average per kilometre through a sophisticated system of electronic on-board boxes which use a satellite detection and guidance system to calculate distances and issue immediate invoices to the lorry owner. Drivers of vehicles equipped with these boxes can pay the toll without leaving the lorry, but only 300,000 HGVs have these boxes at the moment. The German transport minister says that 1.4 million lorries (a third of them from outside Germany) will be affected by the tolls. Thousand of automatic detection points have been installed along the motorway system to allow the other lorries to pay the tolls. It is also possible to pay the charges by internet transfers. According to Le Monde newspaper, the toll system will provide the state with income of around EUR 3 billion in the first year.
The first day of the new toll system worked without hitches, said the German transport minister Manfred Stolpe on Monday, according to reports in AFP. Introducing the new system has not been problem-free, however. The toll system was meant to kick off in 2003, but was put back a few times because of technical problems, despite the claims for the revolutionary new idea. The delays and complications caused great tension between the Toll Collect consortium introducing the toll system (composed of Deutsche Telekom (45%), DaimlerChrysler (45%), French company Cofiroute and the German state) and the German government, which is demanding EUR 4.58 billion from the consortium in lost toll income because of the delays in getting the system up and running.