Call for truck tolls on Austria’s rural highways

The Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) which is the principal organisation in the country working for environmentally sustainable, socially just, and economically efficient mobility, has called for the introduction of truck tolls for rural highways. The organisation says that trucks wear down roads 35,000 times more than cars and also claims that in 2010 truck transport caused road infrastructure-related costs of US$4.78 billion but it paid only $3.46 via tolls and taxes.
April 18, 2012 Read time: 1 min
RSSThe Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) which is the principal organisation in the country working for environmentally sustainable, socially just, and economically efficient mobility, has called for the introduction of truck tolls for rural highways. The organisation says that trucks wear down roads 35,000 times more than cars and also claims that in 2010 truck transport caused road infrastructure-related costs of US$4.78 billion but it paid only $3.46 via tolls and taxes.

Between 2002 and 2010, the freight transport volume on Austrian roads increased from 404 to 479 million tonnes. VCÖ estimates that the volume will go up by another 40 per cent unless additional measures are taken.
Charging, Tolling & RUC

Related Content

  • NATSO dismisses tolling study claims
    September 16, 2013
    NATSO, the US association representing travel plazas and truck-stops, has rejected the report prepared by the Reason Foundation that pushes for widespread tolling. "The public detests interstate tolls, and with good reason," said NATSO president and CEO Lisa Mullings. "Tolls divert motorists and truck drivers to non-interstates, leading to more traffic deaths. Additionally, it costs the government more money to collect tolls than to collect fuel taxes."
    Read More
  • Social media a one-stop shop for travel information
    January 20, 2012
    Exponentially widening mobile phone ownership is opening up the field to new ways of obtaining and disseminating better travel information from and to public transport users, via for example social media and tracking riders' phones. Over 50 US transit agencies, including major actors such as TriMet, in the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon, Dallas Area Rapid Transit in Texas, and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), as well as smaller operators, now have Facebook and/or Twitter accoun
    Read More
  • Mobility pricing offers new tools for managing mobility
    November 23, 2017
    Mobility pricing is the best way of sustaining and enhancing mobility, argues Moving Forward Consulting’s Josef Czako. Mobility pricing (MP) is effectively the culmination of the ‘user pays’ principle and has been referred to in many policy discussions about electronic toll collection, road user charging (RUC), and pricing. MP not only reflects the ‘use more, pay more’ nature of RUC, it also takes account of the external cost of journeys including pollution, noise, the cost of congestion and accidents.
    Read More
  • Workzone safety can be economically viable
    October 24, 2014
    David Crawford looks how workzone safety can be ‘economically viable’. Highway maintenance is one of the most dangerous construction industry occupations in Europe. Research from The Netherlands on fatal crashes indicates that the risk facing road workzone operatives is ‘significantly higher’ than that for the general construction workforce. A survey carried out by the Highways Agency, which runs the UK’s motorway and trunk road network, has suggested that 20% of road workers have suffered injuries from pa
    Read More

Highlighted Content