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T-SYSTEMS, the technology firm behind the German LKW-Maut truck toll,
Page 7
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has outlined its ambitions for the UK's Lorry Road User Charge scheme.
Despite a two-year delay in the launch of the Maut, Ralf Nagel, State Secretary for Transport; Karl-Erhard Eick,finance director at T-Systems' parent company, De ustche Telekorn: and Christoph Bellmer, CEO of Toll Collect, say that they have learned lessons from the fiasco.
Nagel reckons that strong leadership is essential for the project to succeed and that its aims must be made absolutely clear: -The complexity of the system means that you need to have an integrator with lots of experience to get a good system. It's not sufficient to just have the technical side running— you also need someone that can look at the legal side of the project.They're both important."
He adds that the UK scheme, due to be launched in 2008, has no clear leader because it is split into three parts. And Eick says: "We have silenced our critics with a technical system which has worked successfully in Germany. This is a firm basis for competing in other European states."
Harald Lindlar, Toll Collect's head of media relations,insists that the Maut has been welcomed by operators as they are now competing on a level playing field with foreign operators.
Fears that there might be widespread evasion of the toll have also proved unfounded, with fewer than 3% of the 5.3 million vehicles checked since the launch violating the tolling scheme.
• The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) has challenged the legality of the UK LRUC. IBEC says it will act as a barrier to free trade and the free movement of goods in the EU, hitting Irish businesses disproportionately hard. It adds that a new study indicates the cost to Irish hauliers could be €641m a year.