EU to implement fairer rules for road charging

EU countries will need to switch to distance-based road use charges for trucks and buses in 2023 and for cars in 2026. The European Parliament’s Transport Committee has voted on new amendments in a bid to meet emission reduction targets and make charges fairer. Distance-based charging is intended to ensure vehicles are charged according to actual road use and pollution generated. The rule will also apply to goods vans over 2.4 tonnes from 2022. EU countries would need to set different road charging ra
May 29, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
EU countries will need to switch to distance-based road use charges for trucks and buses in 2023 and for cars in 2026. The European Parliament’s Transport Committee has voted on new amendments in a bid to meet emission reduction targets and make charges fairer.


Distance-based charging is intended to ensure vehicles are charged according to actual road use and pollution generated. The rule will also apply to goods vans over 2.4 tonnes from 2022.

EU countries would need to set different road charging rates based on carbon dioxide emissions to encourage use of environmentally-friendly vehicles. Charges for zero-emission trucks would have to be 50% below the lowest rate.

External cost charges for traffic-based air or noise pollution would need to be applied to heavy-duty vehicles and goods vans on tolled roads from 2021.

Road charging would also need to be applied to all heavy-duty vehicles and goods vans from 2020 to ensure fair treatment of all hauliers.

These rules would enable countries to offer discounts in situations where frequent users of light vehicles in the areas of dispersed settlements and the outskirts of cities.

Until the switch to distance-based charges takes place, the draft rules set limits to the short-term charges that can be imposed on drivers from other member states. MEPs also want Vignette stickers to be available for shorter periods of one day and one week.

Revenue from distance-based charges would be invested in transport projects.

Enforcement

Related Content

  • The benefits of combining enforcement and traffic management
    February 27, 2013
    Jason Barnes considers how combining enforcement equipment with other traffic management technologies might benefit our future – if only the will were really in place to do so. During the ITS World Congress in Vienna in October last year, Navtech Radar and Vysion­ics ITS announced a strategic partnership that would combine the expertise of Navtech in millimetre-wave wide-area surveillance technology with Vysionics’ machine vision-based automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and average speed measurement
    Read More
  • We need to talk about AVs
    October 15, 2021
    Will driverless vehicles lead to more deaths and destroy more lives than their manual counterparts? Transport writer Colin Sowman argues that they will
    Read More
  • Indian tech company wins award for turning diesel buses into EVs
    May 18, 2016
    The International Transport Forum (ITF) has awarded India-based technology firm, KPIT Technologies, the Promising Innovation in Transport Award 2016, for its development of a system that can convert new as well as existing diesel buses into full electric buses. KPIT’s smart electric bus technology is modular and highly versatile, making is possible to retrofit different vehicle types from mini buses to large 12-metre public transport buses. The first bus retrofitted by KPIT went into serviced in 2015
    Read More
  • Rating agency Standard and Poor Tolling sees a bright future for tolling
    September 6, 2017
    Few disruptions appear on the horizon for global toll road operators, with the US poised to become a better bet for major investment, according to ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P’s) Global Ratings’ 2017 report, which rates toll road operators according to their ability to raise capital. The outlook is generally stable for business conditions and credit quality for toll roads worldwide. One positive exception is the US where the overall outlook is ‘positive’ as S&P expects traffic growth to increase
    Read More

Highlighted Content