Starting July 1, Germany will extend the toll by a total of 40 thousand km of federal roads. Currently, the fee for heavy goods vehicles is collected on 15 thousand km of highways and federal roads.
Currently, tolls are collected on 13 thousand km of motorways and 2.3 thousand km of federal roads. From 1 July, tolls for trucks above 7.5 tonnes will be extended to a further 40 thousand km of roads.
Germany wants to prevent in this way a possible avoidance of paid sections and provide revenue to the budget. The Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) estimates that toll expansion will bring up to 2 billion euros per year, which will allow the maintenance and development of road infrastructure.
In turn, German carriers warn that due to the inclusion of fees for another 40 thousand km of roads there will be an increase in freight rates. Transport organizations AMÖ (Federal Freight Forwarding and Logistics Association), BGL (Federal Transport and Logistics Association), DSVL (German Shipping and Logistics Association), BWVL (Federal Association of Economy, Transport and Logistics) and BIEK (Federal Union of Courier Industry) in the joint declaration estimate that the costs of the transport and logistics industry will increase in relation to the planned changes by approx. 2 billion euro per year.
New control posts
The Germans started preparations for the toll in October 2016. At that time, the BMVI began pilot testing of control posts. Their job is to check if the driver paid the fee. The posts are to complement mobile controls made by the Federal Office of Road Transport (BAG) on federal roads.
Posts will be placed on federal roads and will have similar functions to bridges installed on highways. The only difference is that the columns do not extend over all the road lanes, but stand at the edge of the road.
Source: Toll Collect
List of federal roads where fees will be charged from July 1, 2018
The Federal Office of Road Engineering (BASt) has published a list of federal roads that will be covered by the toll this year. To download the list, just click below (download .xlsx file):
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