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Pan-Europe road tolls too ambitious says EP

11th December 2003
Page 9
Page 9, 11th December 2003 — Pan-Europe road tolls too ambitious says EP
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION plans to introduce a pan-European road tolling system by 2005 have been stalled this week by the European Parliament which dismissed the plans as-too ambitious".

The EC wants an 'interoperable' tolling system in place for trucks, buses and coaches by 2005. followed by a car system in 2010. Instead, members of the EU parliament's transport committee called for an EU electronic toll system to be rolled out from January 2007 "at the earliest", giving the transport and tolling industries time to come up with standards and to produce the necessary equipment.

The EC wants existing toll systems to incorporate satellite and mobile communications technology from 2008-10, with satellite technology being imposed as the only system from 2012.

However, the committee has proposed that this last deadline should be decided by the tolling and road transport industries, along with national governments, effectively spiking the EC's proposals. The committee's views have been written into amendments to the proposed directive. If they are approved by the full parliament they may end up in the legislation as MEPs have veto rights over this proposal.

That said, the committee supported the EC's general aim of "introducing a European toll service and ensuring user-friendly interoperability of the different toll systems" as a key to integrating IT with road transport systems.

• The Freight Transport Association has condemned the continuing delays in the implementation of digital smart-card tachos.

With the deadline just 240 days away and the scheme beset by technical problems it was expected that a meeting of EU transport ministers last week would discuss the problem.

However, the issue failed to make the agenda and a last ditch bid by the Dutch transport minis ter to force discussion on it fa to make any progress.

An FTA spokesman adds: are getting exasperated Europe and hope to see a rei of common sense in this incr ingly preposterous saga.

"We need to train a mil people by next year and still I no idea of the technology."


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