EU-mandated electronic road fee collection hits delays

The announcement of a public procurement tender needed for the introduction of electronic collection of highway fees has fallen behind schedule in Hungary, making it possible that the country will fail to conform to a European Union directive mandating "usage proportional" road charges for trucks over 3.5 tons by next year.

According to daily Népszava, the tender may not be announced until early next year, and following the announcement it might take another six months to choose the winner. But this would leave scant time for the winner to install, launch and test the fee collection system.

Indeed, according to the paper, even if the tender were announced today, the system would probably not be launched in time. In addition to the EU directives regarding truck traffic, a similar mandate applies to passenger automobiles, but it only comes in force in 2012.

According to the guidelines for the tender, the winner will receive the right to operate the fee collection system for five years. For its part, the Hungarian state will pay a fee to the operator of no more than Ft 69.3 billion (€277,200,000).

Meanwhile, a separate tender may be required for installation of equipment needed to identify vehicles.

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