BRATISLAVA, November 8, (WEBNOVINY) — The Transport Ministry has abandoned plans to revise e-toll rates and extend the fee collection system to sections of first category roads. Decisions on these matters will be made by new leaders that will be in government after the early elections in March 2012. Adjusted toll charges would provide advantages to newer trucks. Of all the planned but not yet implemented changes, only the reduction of the number of tolled sections will became reality by early 2012. Their number will be halved from more than 1,600. The subsequent decrease in toll transactions for the use of tolled roads is expected to save millions of euros in the state coffers paid to the e-toll system operator.
“We want to change the number of tolled roads. They will be compacted and become more advantageous for the state in terms of overall costs. Transport operators will pay the same sum and even less, respectively, in accordance with the concrete section. As for the rates and further decisions, I would time them for the period after the elections in March as the European Commission has to be notified of them,” Transport Minister Jan Figel elaborated. Figel defends these important decisions but their implementation will be reasonable after the elections.
Road hauliers expected discounts for eco-friendly vehicles as of early 2012, two years after the start of the e-toll system. “There was a chance to make concessions at least in allowances for green vehicles. We think that it is a pity and that it [the scheme] should have been launched,” President of the association of hauliers Cesmad Slovakia, Pavol Jancovic, said to the ministry’s decision. During the almost two-year operation of the system, hauliers have not been granted any compensation for a multiple cost increase caused by toll fees when compared with costs of highway stickers. There is no preferential treatment of ecological cars in Slovakia, according to Jancovic. Hauliers have protested against the planned extension of the toll system to first-category roads.
A transport expert opines that the two-year operation of the system is a suitable time period to weigh positive and negative sides of the system. “Rates can even become fairer, particularly to motivate the use of ecological vehicles. The system was not set optimally at the beginning but it can be changed, as well as the extent of tolled sections,” Director General of the Transport Research Institute in Zilina, Lubomir Palcak, believes.
SITA