The Federal Office of Freight Transport (BAG) published toll statistics from 2017. It shows that truck traffic on German toll roads is growing, but the share of domestic trucks is gradually decreasing.
Last year, trucks with a GVM exceeding 7.5 tones travelled nearly 33.6 billion km on toll roads in Germany. This result is 3.3 percent higher than in 2016. However, it is worth noting that the share of German trucks is still falling – from 59.2 percent in 2016, it has decreased to 57.4 percent.
The number of kilometers traveled on federal roads by German vehicles increased by only 0.4 percent, while trucks from abroad improved their result from 2016 by an average of 7.7 percent. Germany has been observing the downward trend for 10 years.
In turn, countries that joined the EU after 2003 have almost doubled their share of German highways. In 2017, countries such as Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and of course Poland once again recorded double-digit increases.
Poland still leading
Among foreign vehicles traveling on toll roads in Germany, Polish trucks are traditionally a leader. They constitute 16.1 percent of the total. The result, reaching the level of over 5.4 billion km, was by 12.5 percent higher than in 2016. At the time, the share of Polish trucks was 14.7 percent (for comparison, the share of Poles in 2015 was 13.6 percent, in 2014 – 12.5 percent. and in 2013 – 11.3 percent).
With a result much lower than ours, the Czech Republic ranked behind Poland: 1.385 billion km with an increase of 1.2%. The Czech Republic was closely followed by Romania, with an important increase of 14.1% (1.172 billion km).
Lithuania, however, deserves particular attention, as with a distance of 0.691 billion km it jumped up by 21.1 percent in German toll statistics.
Bulgaria (10.9% with 0.48 billion km) and Slovenia (11.8% with 0.421 billion km) also recorded significant increases.
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