New European Directive to lead to lower tolls and lesstraffic

Lack of interoperability is a significant issue in electronic road tolling systems. These systems need to be reliable, user friendly, and cost-efficient to enable the development and implementation of fair road-charging policies and to cope with future technical developments. A significant step forward for interoperability at EU level has been made with the publication in March of a new European Directive on the interoperability of electronic road tolling systems and the European GNSS (Galileo and EGNOS) is slated to play a major role.

Lower costs for European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) operators mean that charges can be lower, more traffic will flow on toll roads and/or more fees can be raised to improve road infrastructure; bringing benefits for operators, users and the public economy. Interoperability of tolling systems also makes sense in terms of usability, with drivers able to seamlessly switch from one road-pricing scheme to another as easily as they ‘roam’ across borders on mobile phone networks.

The new EU Directive 2019/520 lays down the conditions necessary to ensure the interoperability of electronic road toll systems across the entire European Union road network, including urban and interurban motorways, major and minor roads, and other road infrastructure such as tunnels or bridges, and ferries. It will also facilitate the cross-border exchange of vehicle registration data to ensure collection of any road tolls due.

For full story, see GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).