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Toll checks checks just 1 0%
Page 9
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THE GERMAN LKW Maut motorway tolling system for trucks has come in for fresh criticism this week following the revelation that only 10% of its control bridges are active at any one time.
In theory the system is monitored by 300 control bridges covering 24,000km of motorway. These are designed to ensure that anyone using the autobahn has either paid for the journey at the point of entry or has an on-board unit lined.
However, the German transport ministry, the BAG, has only switched 10% of the bridges to 'transmit' mode in which they send data back to the BAG so operators can be charged accurately for their road use.
The decision to monitor the roads so lightly is being blamed on cost. The BAG rents the monitoring bridges from Toll Collect — the firm that actually runs the tolling system— and the more bridges that the BAG decides to switch on, the more it costs The BAG estimates that only 3% of trucks are attempting to avoid the tolls, but with so little monitoring these figures are not necessarily accurate. Estimates put the number of undetected offences per day in the tens of thousands.