COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EX-POST EVALUATION of Directive 2004/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the interoperability of electronic road toll systems in the Community and of Commission Decision 2009/750/EC of 6 October 2009 on the definition of the European Electric Toll Service and its technical elements FINAL REPORT Accompanying the document Amended proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of electronic road toll systems and facilitating cross-border exchange of information on the failure to pay road fees in the Union (recast)
Date: 2017-05-31
Institutions: Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, European Commission
Subjects: cross-border cooperation, electronic equipment, exchange of information, national implementing measure, road transport, technical standard, toll, traffic offence, trans-European network, transmission network

EN 

   EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 31.5.2017  SWD(2017) 192 final   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EX-POST EVALUATION   of   Directive 2004/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the interoperability of electronic road toll systems in the Community and of Commission Decision 2009/750/EC of 6 October 2009 on the definition of the European Electric Toll Service and its technical elements FINAL REPORT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of electronic road toll systems and facilitating cross-border exchange of information on the failure to pay road fees in the Union (recast)    {COM(2017) 280 final} {SWD(2017) 190 final} {SWD(2017) 191 final} {SWD(2017) 193 final}  
 
 
Table of Contents 

1. 

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 5 

2.  BACKGROUND TO THE INITIATIVE ................................................................... 5 

2.1.  Description of the initiative and its components ............................................... 5 
2.2.  Baseline and the problems which the initiative was intended to solve ............. 6 
2.3.  Objectives of the initiative and expected outcome ............................................ 8 

3.  EVALUATION QUESTIONS .................................................................................. 10 

3.1.  Effectiveness: .................................................................................................. 10 
3.2.  Efficiency: ....................................................................................................... 10 
3.3.  Relevance: ....................................................................................................... 11 
3.4.  European Added Value: .................................................................................. 11 
3.5.  Coherence: ....................................................................................................... 11 

4.  METHOD .................................................................................................................. 11 

4.1.  Main tools ........................................................................................................ 12 
4.1.1.  Desk research .................................................................................... 12 
4.1.2.  Targeted questionnaires ..................................................................... 13 
4.1.3.  Workshop with representatives of standardisation bodies ................ 13 
4.1.4.  Open public consultation ................................................................... 14 
4.2.  Limitations – robustness of findings ............................................................... 14 

5. 

IMPLEMENTATION STATE OF PLAY (RESULTS) ........................................... 15 

5.1.  State of implementation .................................................................................. 15 
5.2.  Current situation .............................................................................................. 19 
5.2.1.  State of play – interoperability of electronic tolls ............................. 19 
5.2.2.  State of play – costs and hassle linked to electronic tolls ................. 20 

6.  ANSWERS TO THE EVALUATION QUESTIONS .............................................. 23 

6.1.  Effectiveness ................................................................................................... 23 

6.1.1.  Question  1:  Have  the  provisions  of  the  Directive  and  of  the 
Decision 
technical,  contractual  and  procedural 
interoperability of electronic tolls? What has hindered/contributed 
to the achievement of this objective? ................................................ 23 

led 

the 

to 

6.1.2.  Question  2:  Have  the  standards  imposed  by  legislation  been 
sufficient  to render e-tolling  systems technologically compatible? 
If not, what is the reason for that? ..................................................... 24 

6.1.3.  Question  3:  Has  the  integration  of  on-board  units  with  other 
devices such as e-call or the digital tachograph happened and if so 
did it allow for reduction of the costs? Is it technically feasible and 
does it have the potential to reduce costs? ........................................ 25 

6.1.4.  Question  4:  To  what  extent  did  toll  chargers  comply  with  the 
requirement to use only three technologies? To what extent did it 
help achieve interoperability? Did it have any unintended effects? .. 26 

 
 
6.1.5.  Question  5:  Has  the  cost  of  setup  and  maintenance  of  electronic 
toll  systems  for  toll  chargers  changed?  Has  the  compliance  cost 
and  hassle  for  tolled  road  users  changed?  If  so,  can  this  be 
attributed to the effects of the evaluated legislation? ........................ 27 

6.1.6.  Question 6: Have the provisions of the Decision led to the setup of 
the  EETS?  What  has  hindered/contributed  to  the  achievement  of 
this objective? .................................................................................... 29 

6.1.7.  Question  7:  To  what  extent  has  the  legal  framework  led  to  the 
improvement of the internal market for electronic fee collections? 
What  factors  have  contributed  to  or  hindered  the  achievement  of 
this objective? .................................................................................... 32 

6.1.8.  Question 8: Has the legal framework led to any unintended effect 

(negative or positive)? ....................................................................... 33 
6.2.  Efficiency ........................................................................................................ 34 

6.2.1.  Question  9:  What  are  the  current  costs  (including  opportunity 
costs of not using another suitable technology) and benefits of the 
approach limiting to  three the number of technologies allowed to 
be used for electronic tolling? What will be their possible level in 
the  short-to-medium  term  future?  Are  the  answers  different  for 
different types of vehicles (heavy vs. light vehicles)? ...................... 34 

6.2.2.  Question  10:  Are  the  costs  of  the  approach  involving  third  party 
providers (EETS provider) adopted in the Decision lower than the 
benefits  associated  with  the  EU  wide  interoperability  of  the  toll? 
Would the relation between the costs and benefits be better had an 
alternative  approach  been  chosen  (e.g.  deployment  of  EETS 
through  agreement  between  toll  chargers,  or  as  a  public  service 
obligation, etc.)? ................................................................................ 36 
6.3.  Relevance: ....................................................................................................... 38 

6.3.1.  Question 11: To what extent is interoperability of electronic tolls 
needed by the users? Is the answer different for different types of 
road users (in particular heavy goods vehicles vs. other users)? Is 
it likely to change over time? ............................................................ 38 

6.3.2.  Question  12:  To  what  extent 

the  objective  of  having 
interoperability  at  all  three  different  levels  (technical,  contractual 
and procedural) is equally needed by the road users? Would any of 
the three levels of interoperability be less relevant? ......................... 40 

6.3.3.  Question  13:  To  what  extent  does  the  level  of  the  costs  (and 
hassle)  caused  by  the  lack  of  interoperability  justify  policy 
intervention  to  facilitate  interoperability?  How  has  the  gradual 
increase in the length of tolled networks and number of electronic 
toll systems in the EU affected the relevance of the objectives of 
reducing costs for users and for toll chargers? .................................. 40 

6.3.4.  Question  14:  To  what  extent  the  coverage  of  the  framework  in 
terms of users and geographical scope is adequate to the needs of 
the sector?  For instance, is interoperability needed for some or all 
road user types? Is it relevant to cover all toll domains in the EU? 
Could it cover less, e.g. main transit countries? Or should it cover 

3 

 
more,  e.g.  Switzerland,  EEA,  Western  Balkans,  Turkey, 
Community of Independent States, etc.? ........................................... 41 

6.3.1.  Question  15:  Is  there  still  a  need  to  ensure  that  the  technologies 
and components provided for in national electronic fee collection 
systems be combined with other vehicle components? ..................... 42 
6.4.  European added value ..................................................................................... 43 

6.4.1.  Question  16:  What  was  the  EU  added  value  of  the  EETS 

legislation?......................................................................................... 43 
6.5.  Coherence ........................................................................................................ 43 

6.5.1.  Question 17: To what extent the legal framework is coherent with 
the goals and provisions of existing and upcoming EU legislation? 
In  particular,  how  does  this  initiative  fit  in  the  overall  ITS  legal 
framework? ........................................................................................ 43 

6.5.2.  Question  18:  To  what  extent  are  the  provisions  of  the  Directive 
and  of  the  Decision  coherent  and  consistent?  Are  there  any 
incompatibilities or contradictions between individual provisions? . 45 

7.  CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................... 45 

7.1.  Effectiveness ................................................................................................... 45 
7.2.  Efficiency ........................................................................................................ 46 
7.3.  Relevance ........................................................................................................ 47 
7.4.  European added value ..................................................................................... 47 
7.5.  Coherence ........................................................................................................ 47 

8.  ANNEXES ................................................................................................................ 49 

8.1.  Annex 1: Glossary ........................................................................................... 49 
8.2.  Annex 2: Intervention logic ............................................................................. 51 
8.3.  Annex  3:  Synopsis  report  on  back-to-back  public  consultation  activities 

(covering both the ex post evaluation and the impact assessment) ................. 53 
8.4.  Annex 4: Bibliography .................................................................................... 66 
8.5.  Annex 5: Overview of tolling systems in the EU ............................................ 67 

4 

 
 
 
 
1. 

INTRODUCTION 

The  present  ex  post  evaluation  assesses  the  effects  of  the  legislation  on  the  European 
Electronic Toll Service (EETS)1 and its implementation over the period of 2004-2014. 

The  assessment  covers  Directive  2004/52/EC  (EETS  Directive)2  and  Decision  2009/750/EC 
(EETS  Decision)3  which  lay  down  the  conditions  for  the  interoperability  of  electronic  road 
toll systems in the European Union.  

 The  ex  post  evaluation  assesses  the  level  and  accuracy  of  implementation  of  the  legal 
framework,  the  relevance  of  the  objectives  and  the  effectiveness  and  efficiency  of  the 
individual provisions in achieving stated objectives. It nominally covers the period since the 
adoption of the EETS Directive in 2004. However, it focuses on the period after the adoption 
of Decision 2009/750/EC, which defined the EETS and thus allowed its physical deployment. 

An EETS is still not available to road users today. The analysis in this ex post evaluation will 
notably  help  understanding  if  the  existing  legal  framework  was  ineffective  and  why  the 
European Electronic Toll Service was not offered to heavy duty vehicles (HDV) by October 
2012  and  to  other  types  of  vehicles  by  October  2014,  as  provided  under  Directive 
2004/52/EC. 

The  possible  market  and  regulatory  failures  identified  in  this  ex  post  evaluation  could 
contribute to the problem definition in the impact assessment accompanying a revision of the 
EETS legislation. 

2.  BACKGROUND TO THE INITIATIVE 

2.1.  Description of the initiative and its components 

Directive 2004/52/EC mandated the setup of a European Electronic Toll Service (EETS), by 
which road users only subscribe to a single contract and use a single on-board unit (OBU) to 
pay  electronic  tolls  all  over  the  EU.  The  EETS  was  to  be  provided  to  heavy  duty  vehicles 
(HDV) by October 2012 and to cars by October 2014. To ensure that different tolling systems 
are technologically compatible and therefore ready to connect to this single tolling service, the 
Directive  specified  that  all  new  electronic  toll  systems  which  require  the  installation  of  on-
board  equipment,  brought  into  service  after  1  January  2007,  shall  use  one  or  more  of  the 
following  three  technologies:  satellite  positioning  (GNSS)4  –  recommended;  mobile 
communications (GSM-GPRS); microwave technology (DSRC). 

It was expected that, as a result of this technical convergence, standard equipment and back 
office  solutions  could  be  used  in  all  the  systems.  This  would  have  brought  their  unit  costs 
down  by  a  mechanism  of  economies  of  scale.  Road  users  would  not  have  to  equip  their 
vehicles  with  many  scheme-specific  on-board  units  (OBU)  any  more.  It  was  also  expected 
that the OBU would, with time, be integrated with other devices installed in the vehicle, such 
as the digital tachograph, to achieve further savings. 

1 Abbreviations and difficult terms are explained in a glossary in annex I to this staff working document. 
2 Directive 2004/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the interoperability of electronic 
road toll systems in the Community (Text with EEA relevance),  OJ L 166, 30.4.2004, p. 124–143. 
3  Commission  Decision  of  6  October  2009  on  the  definition  of  the  European  Electronic  Toll  Service  and  its  technical 
elements (notified under document C(2009) 7547) (Text with EEA relevance), OJ L 268, 13.10.2009, p. 11–29. 
4 Annex 1 contains a glossary of difficult terms and abbreviations used in this document. 

5 

 
                                                 
Decision  2009/750/EC  defined  the  EETS  and  provided  for  the  European  Electronic  Toll 
Service to be offered by market players on commercial terms. It split the actors of the EETS 
between four categories: 

-  Member States, 

-  Toll  chargers  (TC),  i.e.  managers  of  the  roads  for  the  use  of  which  a  toll  is  levied 

electronically, 

-  Clients, i.e. road users, and 

-  EETS providers, i.e. intermediaries between the clients and the toll chargers. 

The Decision stated that 'EETS providers' should negotiate with all toll chargers in the EU the 
authorisation to provide the EETS on their road networks; then, they should offer the EETS to 
their clients. 

The Decision specified in details the rights and obligation of all actors. Member States should 
have  put  in  place  the  necessary  regulatory  framework  to  make  the  provision  of  EETS 
possible. They should have notably established independent 'conciliation bodies' to supervise 
the correct application of the rights and obligations of all partners. Toll chargers should have 
accepted  on  a  non-discriminatory  basis  all  interested  EETS  providers  and  their  certified 
equipment; they had the right to request full co-operation of the EETS providers to guarantee 
the correct functioning of the service and eventually the correct collection of the toll.  EETS 
providers should have provided their services in all electronic toll domains in the EU within 
24  months  from  their  official  registration  by  their  Member  State  of  establishment  and 
guarantee the quality and continuity of the EETS, in full co-operation with the toll chargers. 
Finally,  EETS  users  should  have  ensured  the  correctness  of  all  the  data  provided  in  the 
framework of the EETS and complied with the obligation to pay the toll; they had the right to 
sign  contracts  with  the  EETS  provider  of  their  choice  and  pay  all  their  tolls  through  this 
channel. 

2.2.  Baseline and the problems which the initiative was intended to solve 

At the time of the adoption of the EETS Directive (2004), nearly all motorway tolls (which 
existed  on  a  larger  scale  in  Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Italy,  Slovenia,  Greece,  Ireland  and 
Poland)  required  vehicles  to  stop  before  a  barrier,  which  would  open  after  payment  of  the 
amount due. Special electronic tolling lanes were reserved for holders of on-board units; the 
latter allowed remote collection of the toll directly from the account of the user; the vehicle 
would  need  to  slow  down,  but  not  stop,  as  the  barrier  would  open  automatically  once  the 
payment confirmed. 

The  first  large  scale  free-flow  system5  was  deployed  by  Austria  in  2004,  followed  by 
Germany in 2005. Both systems were only designed for lorries. The Austrian scheme used the 
DSRC technology (the same as used in the special lanes on toll plazas), while Germany opted 
for satellite positioning coupled with mobile communications. 

5 Free-flow tolling schemes are those which allow registering and collecting the toll due without requiring the vehicle to stop 
or slow down. 

6 

 
 
 
 
                                                 
Relatively  early,  concessionaires  inside  different  EU  countries  co-operated  to  make  their 
individual  electronic  tolling  systems  interoperable:  in  France,  the  Liber-T  system  for  light 
vehicles  was  introduced  in  2000  and  is  still  operational  today;  similar  agreements  exist  in 
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and elsewhere.  

On  the  other  hand,  nearly  no  interoperability  agreements  were  reached  between  partners 
located  in  different  States.  It  was  only  made  possible  to  use  Swiss  OBUs  to  pay  tolls  in 
Austria.  

The  first  interoperability  agreements  (such  as  Liber-T)  were  negotiated  bilaterally  between 
toll chargers, but in the second half of the 2000's contracts involving third party toll service 
providers started to appear. As an example, the French single tolling system for lorries 'TIS-
PL', introduced in  2007,6 is  offered by as  many as  five toll service providers competing  for 
customers and offering access to all tolled road infrastructures in France. Other examples of 
interoperability  involving  one  or  more  third  party(ies)  exist  notably  in  Spain,  Portugal  and 
Ireland. 

Already in 2004, most electronic tolling systems which required the installation of equipment 
on-board the vehicle were using technologies compatible with the requirements of the EETS 
Directive.7  The  only  major  exception  to  this  rule  was  the  Slovenian  HGV  toll,  which  used 
short  range  communication  in  a  different  frequency  band  than  the  DSRC  standard.  Infrared 
DSRC and passive RFID were also used in local systems (respectively Westerschelde tunnel 
in the Netherlands and Warnow tunnel in Rostock, Germany). 

Before the adoption of the EETS framework there was no integration between tolling OBUs 
and other devices installed inside the vehicle, such as the digital tachograph or e-call. There 
were  no  examples  of  OBUs  being  used  for  other  purposes  than  tolling.  It  is  important  to 
mention that at that time e-call was not deployed, and the digital tachograph did not contain 
GNSS  and  DSRC  technologies,  which  could  become  the  basis  for  integration  with  tolling 
OBUs.  

The  lack  of  interoperability  agreements  between  partners  in  different  countries  meant  that 
hauliers  had  to  equip  their  vehicles  with  as  many  OBUs  as  States  which  their  trucks  were 
crossing. Indeed, a truck transporting goods from Berlin to Lisbon needed, just for this trip, 4 
OBUs.  The  price  of  an  OBU  depends  on  the  technology  of  tolling.  Back  in  2004,  the 
manufacturing costs of a DSRC OBU was 20-30 EUR, and of a GNSS OBU – 180-300 EUR,8 
but the price or deposit paid by the user would on many occasions be much higher. This was 
notably the case in Germany, where the OBU had to be fixed inside the vehicle by a specialist 
in a certified workshop.  

Hauliers  also  had  to  sign  separate  tolling  contracts  for  each  country  –  often  in  the  local 
languages of the toll chargers – and pay separate invoices in the currency of each toll charger. 
The  latter  however  was  not  considered  as  an  issue  before  two  consecutive  enlargements  of 

6 ASFA, answer to the targeted consultation for the ex post evaluation of EETS policy, 17.07.2015. 
7  It  is  worth  mentioning  that  one  of  the  dominant  technologies  in  other  parts  of  the  world  was  and  still  is  passive  radio 
frequency  identification  ('passive  RFID');  this  technology  allows  unidirectional  data  communication  from  the  OBU  to  the 
roadside equipment, but not vice-versa. Passive RFID is therefore less sophisticated than semi-active DSRC (which allows, 
to a certain degree, for bi-directional communication), but the OBUs (stickers similar to the ones which protect cloths and 
other goods against stealing from shops) are much cheaper (1-2 EUR instead of 9-15 EUR for DSRC). 
8  Estimates  based  on  the  assumption  that  prices  fell  by  50%  over  the  last  ten  years,  as  confirmed  notably  by  ASFA, 
ASFINAG, Ireland, Germany, Flanders, Poland, Portugal, Toll Collect in their answers to the targeted consultation. 

7 

 
                                                 
2004  and  2009,  as  at  that  time  most  electronic  tolling  systems  were  deployed  in  Eurozone 
countries). If we assume that a lorry engaged in international haulage had typically to visit or 
cross  each  year  at  least  once  Germany,  Austria,  Switzerland,  France,  Italy  and  Spain,  then 
each  haulier  had  to  equip  his/her  vehicles  with  6  OBUs  each,  sign  as  many  local  tolling 
contracts and pay dozens of invoices a year.9 A truck travelling across all Member States of 
today's  EU  (incl.  Romania,  Bulgaria  and  Croatia)  would  had  had  to  be  equipped  with  11 
OBUs  (for  Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Italy,  Germany,  Austria,  Slovenia,  Croatia,  Ireland, 
Greece and the Øresund bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö) and pay countless invoices 
per year. This would have been source of significant compliance costs and burden inside the 
companies. 

Each  electronic  tolling  system  was  being  developed  'from  scratch'.  Toll  chargers  had  to 
support  very  significant  system  development  costs,  which  raised  initial  investment  costs  to 
extremely high levels. For example, investment in the development of the system amounted to 
EUR  750  millions  in  Austria  (2004)  and  EUR  700  million  in  Germany  (2005).10  Operation 
costs were consuming a significant share of the revenues: in Germany, initially they amounted 
to 18% of the revenues.11 

These issues have led to a situation where electronic fee collection did not operate in a cost 
efficient way and the proliferation of technologies and specifications was seen as a potential 
barrier to the smooth operation of the internal market. 

2.3.  Objectives of the initiative and expected outcome 

The  European  legislator  provided  for  a  European  Electronic  Toll  Service  (EETS)  to  answer 
the abovementioned problems of road users and toll chargers.  

The general objective of the EETS legislation was to improve the functioning of the internal 
market for electronic fee collection and to remove barriers that hinder the free movement of 
people  and  goods  and  compromise  transport  policy  objectives  by  offering  to  road  users  the 
European Electronic Toll Service.  

In more specific terms, the objectives were to: 

(1) 

(2) 

reduce for road users the hassle and direct costs of compliance with the requirement to 
pay  tolls,  i.e.  of  installing,  updating  and  handling  the  on-board  equipment  and  of 
managing tolling contracts in different Member States; 

reduce  for  toll  chargers  (i.e.  road  operators)  the  costs  of  setup,  operation  and 
administration of electronic fee collection systems. 

Finally, in operational terms, the initiative aimed at: 

(1) 

ensuring that the technologies and components provided for in national electronic fee 
collection  systems  can  be  combined  with  other  vehicle  components  e.g.  the  digital 
tachograph and  the  e-call  (emergency  call  device)  or  tracking  and  tracing  devices  of 
vehicles, to save money on redundant equipment; 

9 This assumes a monthly invoicing period. 
10 Steer Davies Gleave, Technology options for the European Electronic Toll Service, Study performed for the European 
Parliament, 2014 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2014/529058/IPOL_STUD(2014)529058_EN.pdf.   
11 Contribution of Toll Collect to the targeted consultation. 

8 

 
                                                 
and, more importantly, 

(2) 

ensuring the interoperability of electronic tolls at technical, contractual and procedural 
levels. Interoperability can indeed be defined on three layers:  

  first, a certain level of technical harmonisation of the equipment and systems 
used  for  electronic  tolling  must  be  achieved  for  the  EETS  to  be  feasible  at 
reasonable costs; 

  second, it must be possible for users from different countries to sign a contract 
with one EETS providers, and for the EETS provider to sign contracts with all 
toll  chargers.  For  this  to  be  achievable,  contractual  practices  across  the  EU 
must be approximated; 

  third,  procedures  for  calculating  and  transmitting  toll  information  need  to  be 
similar  across  the  schemes,  so  that  the  EETS  may  be  operated  with  similar 
features in all toll domains. 

Figure 2 and  Figure 3 in Annex 2 present the intervention logic of the EETS legislation. In 
summary,  the  Directive  and  the  Decision  were  expected  to  create  the  appropriate  legal 
framework  for  the  single  European  electronic  toll  service  to  be  provided  as  a  commercial 
service by third party providers playing the role of intermediaries between road users and the 
toll chargers in different toll domains. 

The EETS was expected to facilitate the payment of road use charges for drivers when they 
go abroad. Users were also expected to accept more easily paying for the use of roads if the 
payment means were interoperable at European level.  

It was also expected that this legal framework would provide the incentives (notably through 
standardisation work) for gradual technical and operational convergence of electronic tolling 
in the EU. This in turn would allow industrial economies of scale which would pull the costs 
of equipment and systems down. 

Finally,  the  interoperability  and  harmonisation  of  equipment  was  expected  to  bring  as  a 
consequence the integration of OBUs with other standardised equipment in the vehicle such 
as the digital tachograph or e-call. 

It  should  also  be  mentioned  that  an  original  idea  of  the  legislation  was  to  allow  future 
generations  of  tolling  systems  to  benefit  from  the  high  level  of  performance  and  of  the 
flexibility  of  satellite-based  tolling,  through  EGNOS  and  GALILEO,  the  European  satellite 
positioning systems. 

Had  e-tolling  become  cheaper  and  interoperable  as  expected,  this  would  have  created  the 
potential for: 

  the increased replacement of manual toll collection at toll booths by fully electronic tolling, 
allowing  to  cope  with  the  increase  of  traffic,  which  in  turn  would  help  reducing  the 
problem of recurrent congestion at toll booths; 

  easier  and  more  wide-spread  application  of  tolls  on  the  wider  network  (not  only 
motorways)  and  to  all  vehicles  (incl.  passenger  cars),  facilitating  the  generation  of 

9 

 
necessary funds for the completion and maintenance of the transport networks. This would 
allow true application of the 'user pays' and 'polluter pays' principles to road transport, and 
therefore  the  creation  of  a  level  playing  field  between  transport  undertakings  in  the  road 
sector and between the transport modes. 

3.  EVALUATION QUESTIONS 

3.1.  Effectiveness:  

(1) 

(2) 

(3) 

(4) 

(5) 

(6) 

(7) 

Have  the  provisions  of  the  Directive  and  of  the  Decision  led  to  the  technical, 
contractual  and  procedural 
tolls?  What  has 
hindered/contributed to the achievement of this objective? 

interoperability  of  electronic 

Have the standards imposed by legislation been sufficient to render e-tolling systems 
technologically compatible? If not, what is the reason for that? 

Has  the  integration  of  on-board  units  with  other  devices  such  as  e-call  or  the  digital 
tachograph happened and if so did it allow for reduction of the costs? Is it technically 
feasible and does it make sense from an economic point of view?  

To  what  extent  did  toll  chargers  comply  with  the  requirement  to  use  only  three 
technologies?  To  what  extent  did  it  help  achieve  interoperability?  Has  it  lead  to  any 
unintended effects? 

Has  the  cost  of  setup  and  maintenance  of  electronic  toll  systems  for  toll  chargers 
changed? Has the cost and administrative hassle for tolled road users changed? If so, 
can this be attributed to the effects of the evaluated legislation?  

Have  the  provisions  of  the  Decision  led  to  the  setup  of  the  EETS?  What  has 
hindered/contributed to the achievement of this objective? 

To what extent has the legal framework led to the improvement of the internal market 
for  electronic  fee  collections?  What  factors  have  contributed  to  or  hindered  the 
achievement of this objective?  

(8) 

Has the legal framework led to any unintended effect (negative or positive)? 

3.2.  Efficiency:  

(1)  What  are  the  current costs  (including  opportunity  costs  of  not  using  another  suitable 
technology) and benefits of the approach limiting to three the number of technologies 
allowed to be used for electronic tolling? What will be their possible level in the short-
to-medium  term  future?  Are  the  answers  different  for  different  types  of  vehicles 
(heavy vs. light vehicles)? 

(2) 

Are  the  costs  of  the  approach  involving  third  party  providers  (EETS  provider)) 
adopted  in  the  Decision  lower  than  the  benefits  associated  with  the  EU  wide 
interoperability of the toll? Would the relation between the costs and benefits be better 
had an alternative approach been chosen (e.g. deployment of EETS through agreement 
between toll chargers, or as a public service obligation, etc.)?  

10 

 
3.3.  Relevance: 

(3) 

(4) 

(5) 

(6) 

(7) 

To what extent is interoperability of electronic tolls needed by the users? Is the answer 
different for different types of road users (in particular heavy goods vehicles vs. other 
users)? Is it likely to change over time? 

To  what  extent  the  objective  of  having  interoperability  at  all  three  different  levels 
(technical, contractual and procedural) is equally needed by the users? Would any of 
the three levels of interoperability be less relevant? 

To  what  extent  does  the  level  of  the  costs  (and  hassle)  caused  by  the  lack  of 
interoperability  justify  policy  intervention  to  facilitate  interoperability?  How  has  the 
gradual increase in the length of tolled networks and number of electronic toll systems 
in the EU affected the relevance of the objectives of reducing costs for users and for 
toll chargers? 

To  what  extent  the  coverage  of  the  framework  in  terms  of  users  and  geographical 
scope is adequate to the needs of the sector?  For instance, is interoperability needed 
for  some  or  all  road  user  types?  Is  it  relevant  to  cover  all  toll  domains  in  the  EU? 
Could  it  cover  less,  e.g.  main  transit  countries?  Or  should  it  cover  more,  e.g. 
Switzerland, EEA, Western Balkans, Turkey, Community of Independent States, etc.?  

Is  there  still  a  need  to  ensure  that  the  technologies  and  components  provided  for  in 
national  electronic  fee  collection  systems  be  combined  with  other  vehicle 
components? 

3.4.  European Added Value:  

(1)  What was the EU added value of the EETS legislation? 

3.5.  Coherence:  

(2) 

(3) 

To  what  extent  the  legal  framework  is  coherent  with  the  goals  and  provisions  of 
existing and upcoming EU legislation? In particular, how does this initiative fit in the 
overall ITS legal framework? 

To  what  extent  are  the  provisions  of  the  Directive  and  of  the  Decision  coherent  and 
consistent?  Are  there  any  incompatibilities  or  contradictions  between  individual 
provisions? 

4.  METHOD 

Work on this ex post evaluation started in March 2015. A roadmap for this ex post evaluation 
was published on the Europa website on 14 September 2015.12  

The  evaluation  covers  the  10-years13  periods  starting  from  20  May  2004,  when  the  EETS 
Directive entered into force, until 31 December 2014. The assessment of the implementation 

12 Evaluation of the legislation on the European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) – Directive 2004/52/EC and Decision 
2009/750/EC, http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2015_move_108_evaluation_eets_en.pdf. 
13  The  assessment  of  the  implementation  in  Bulgaria,  Romania  and  Croatia  starts  as  of  the  date  of  their  accession  to  the 
European Union, respectively 2007 (BG and RO) and 2013 (HR). 

11 

 
 
                                                 
of  the  Decision  will  cover  the  period  from  13  October  2009,  when  the  Decision  was 
published, until 31 December 2014. However, where there was important evolution between 
the end of 2014 and the day of the publication of this staff working document (for example 
regarding the registration of EETS providers), this is also reflected in the text. 

4.1.  Main tools 

A range of methodological tools to gather the necessary quantitative and qualitative evidence 
for  the  analysis  of  the  key  evaluation  issues  were  used.  These  are  outlined  below  and  the 
methodology  followed  is  further  described  in  the  following  sections.  Furthermore,  the  data 
gathered  through  these  tools  were  checked  for  consistency  and  relevance.  The  quantitative 
data  were  formed  into  tables  and  analysed.  Since  the  relevant  data  was  obtained  through 
various methods, triangulation was used to verify the findings. 

4.1.1.  Desk research 

The literature review covered a number of relevant reports and statistics.  The purpose of the 
desk  research  was  to  provide  an  overview  of  the  available  information  relevant  to  the 
evaluation in the literature and to identify the gaps in available data. Sources were primarily 
selected by the Commission, and supplemented by suggestions from stakeholders.   

An  important  data  source  of  information  for  this  evaluation  is  the  REETS  project14.    This 
regional interoperability project of 7 EU Member States and Switzerland, co-financed by the 
European Commission, published 12 reports, notably on the following topics: 

– contractual framework and risk management 
– certification 
– key performance indicators 
– back office interfaces 
– return on experience 

The  papers  report  on  the  obstacles  to  EETS  deployment  and  provide  recommendations  on 
how  to  solve  them.  Obstacles  are  linked  to  inappropriate  provisions  in  the  EU  legal 
framework, the way they have been applied at national level, standardisation issues, etc. 

It  is  important  to  mention  that  the  REETS  project  gathered  representatives  of  all  the 
categories  of  stakeholders  involved  in  EETS  deployment,  i.e.  Member  States,  toll  chargers 
and toll service providers. Reports are adopted by consensus, and thus reflect a balanced view 
of  tpahe  industry  on  the  main  obstacles  to  EETS  deployment.  REETS  reports  provided 
elements for the evaluation of the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the legislation in 
place. 

Expert  views  presented  in  the  study  Expert  Review  of  the  EETS  Legislative  (September 
2015)15  critically  analysed  the  provisions  of  the  EETS  Directive  and  EETS  Decision, 
indicating  regulatory  failures  which  contributed  to  the  lack  of  success  of  EETS.  The  study 
was performed  for the Commission by a consultancy16 with long experience with electronic 
tolling systems. 

14 www.reets.eu.  
15 4icom, Expert Review of the EETS Legislative Acts, 2015, http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/road/studies/doc/2015-09-
ex-post-evaluation-eets-4icom.pdf . 
164icom.  

12 

 
                                                 
The  study  State  of  the  Art  of  Electronic  Tolling17  (October  2015)  which  was  performed  on 
behalf  of  the  European  Commission  upon  request  from  the  European  Parliament,18  assesses 
available  tolling  technologies  and  suggests  solutions  to  identified  problems.  It  focuses 
particularly  on  the  costs  and  benefits  offered  by  each  electronic  tolling  solution.  It  thus 
provides data for evaluating the efficiency of the technological choices in the Directive, and 
helped answering the questions on relevance of the existing provisions. 

A full list of the literature used is presented in Annex 4. 

4.1.2.  Targeted questionnaires  

On  26  June  2015,  separate  targeted  questionnaires  were  sent  to  the  main  groups  of 
stakeholders in the field of EETS (i.e. Member States and toll chargers; toll service providers; 
road  users,  with  a  distinction  between  heavy  and  light  vehicles;  technology  providers  and 
commercial vehicle manufacturers) to collect missing information and data. A summary of the 
results  of  this  and  all  other  consultation  activities  are  published  under  the  following  link: 
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/road/consultations/2016-eets_en.  A  shorter  review  of  the 
results is also presented in the synopsis report of all consultation activities in Annex 3. 

Consulted European organisations were invited to disseminate the questionnaire among their 
members  to  maximise  response  rate.  During  the  consultation  period,  which  lasted  till 
September 2015, the Commission received a total of 22 responses. 

Targeted  questionnaires  focussed  on  information  gaps  identified  during  the  desk  research. 
Both the answer rate and the average quality of contributions were high, including quantified 
data. 

Type of stakeholder 

Approached 

Responded 

Member States and Toll 
Chargers 

Toll Service providers 

Road users (heavy duty 
transport) 
Road users (light 
vehicles) 
TOTAL (surveys) 

33 individual + 
3 associations 
1 + 1 
association 

2 associations 

2 associations 

42 

15 

4 

2 

1 

22 

% response 
rate 

42% 

200% 

100% 

50% 

52% 

4.1.3.  Workshop with representatives of standardisation bodies 

To  complete  the  knowledge  on  existing  standardisation  gaps,  a  full  day  seminar  involving 
representatives  of  3  notified  bodies,  the  European  Committee  for  Standardisation  and  two 

of 

on 

Study 

“State 

174icom. 
the  Art 
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/road/road_charging/doc/study-electronic-road-tolling.pdf.  
18 In its Resolution of 11 June 2013 on a "Strategy for an electronic toll service and a vignette system on light private vehicles 
in  Europe",  the  European  Parliament  asked  the  Commission  to  undertake  a  review  of  all  available  studies  on  electronic  road 
tolling systems,  so as to  provide  a clear basis for  different  options  for action in both the  medium and the long term,  including 
charging for road use via technologies such as GPS/GNSS, in order to prevent and reduce traffic congestion caused by physical 
barriers. 

Tolling”  MOVE/D3/2014-259, 

of  Electronic  Road 

2015, 

13 

 
 
                                                 
equipment manufacturers was organised in the framework of a meeting of the Notified Bodies 
Co-ordination Group (NoBos-CG) on 29 September 2015.  

Important input  on issues related to standards and technical certification was received  as  an 
outcome of the discussion. 

The group will keep on working on the subject and is intending to present recommendations 
to the Commission. 

4.1.4.  Open public consultation 

An  open  public  consultation  to  validate  the  results  of  the  ex  post  evaluation  was  organised 
back-to-back with the public consultation on the Impact Assessment. It was launched on 8th 
July  2016  and  was  open  for  responses  until  2nd  October  (12  weeks).  The  objective  of  the 
consultation  was  to  give  the  wide  public  an  opportunity  to  express  their  opinion  on  the  big 
societal choices related to the organisation of electronic toll collection in the EU. A total of 73 
responses  to  the  questionnaire  were  received.  There  were  four  main  groups  of  respondents: 
industry associations (29 out of 73 or 40%), companies (21 out of 73 or 29%), citizens ( 11 
out  of  73  or  15%)  and  public  authorities19  (9  out  of  73  or  12%).  There  were  many  more 
respondents from EU-15 (over 50) than from EU-13 (10) or outside the EU (12). A summary 
of  the  results  of  this  and  all  other  consultation  activities  are  published  under  the  following 
link: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/road/consultations/2016-eets_en. A shorter review of 
the results is also presented in the synopsis report of all consultation activities in Annex 3. 

4.2.  Limitations – robustness of findings 

The community of electronic tolling professionals in the European Union is relatively small 
and  well  organised.  It  was  therefore  relatively  easy  to  access  the  relevant  stakeholders  to 
collect from them information for the ex post evaluation. However, data on costs is considered 
commercially  sensitive,  and  therefore  difficult  to  obtain.  This  ex  post  evaluation  therefore 
often had to base the analysis on expert estimations, price ranges or, in the best case scenario, 
averaged figures. 

It  was  also  difficult  to  obtain  reliable  data  on  the  demand  for-  and  use  of  interoperable 
services by the hauliers and other road users. The road transport market is highly fragmented 
with  a  lot  of  one-truck-one-man  companies  –  according  to  official  statistics,  80%  of  road 
freight transport companies in the EU employ less than 10 people.20 reliable consolidated data 
is therefore rare and hard to obtain. This makes it nearly impossible to estimate and monetise 
with  sufficient  level  of  precision  the  potential  benefits  of  interoperability  (or,  to  put  it  the 
other way, the current costs of the lack of interoperability). These can only be provided in the 
form of ranges and made dependent on the assumptions taken. The latter are explained each 
time  figures  dependent  on  assumptions  are  provided  throughout  the  text.  Again,  even  most 
conservative  assumptions  do  not  change  the  validity  of  the  conclusions  as  to  the  need  to 
further promote tolling interoperability. 

19  Public  authorities  from  the  following  countries  participated  in  the  open  public  consultation:  Czech  Republic,  Estonia, 

France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, United Kingdom. 

20 

European 

Road 
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/modes/road/doc/2009_road_freight_vademecum.pdf.  

Commission, 

Transport 

Freight 

Vademecum 

2009, 

14 

 
                                                 
5. 

IMPLEMENTATION STATE OF PLAY (RESULTS) 

5.1. 

State of implementation 

EETS legislation is not fully implemented in the EU Member States, as half of them failed to 
meet  certain  requirements  set  in  the  EETS  legal  framework  according  to  the  required 
timetable  (as  explained  in  more  details  below).  As  a  result,  the  Commission  started 
infringement procedures against eight Member States for non-respect of one or more of these 
obligations.  Five  Member  States  were  able  to  fulfil  their  obligations  in  the  course  of  the 
infringement procedures. It is expected that additional infringements will be opened as result 
of unsatisfactory exchange of information between the Commission and other Member States 
on the level of implementation of EETS in their respective countries. 

The  EETS  Directive  provided  that  Member  States  had  to  ensure  that  all  electronic  tolling 
systems  requiring  the  installation  of  an  on-board  unit  and  brought  into  use  after  1  January 
2007 use one, or a combination of, three technologies: microwave communications, satellite 
positioning and mobile telecommunications (Art.2). This provision has been largely respected 
by the Member States. Systems using alternative technologies are rare and have typically been 
put in place before 2007 (cf. section 2.2 for the details). 

The  EETS  Directive  also  requires  Member  State  to  ensure  that  the  EETS  is  offered  to  the 
users according to a fixed schedule (by October 2012 for heavy duty vehicles and by October 
2014  for  light  vehicles).  Given  the  fact  that  to  date  there  is  no  EETS  in  place,  all  Member 
States have failed to meet these obligations. 

The EETS Decision put three detailed concrete obligations on the Member States to pave the 
way for the implementation of the EETS: 

  to foresee a registration procedure for candidate EETS providers; 

  to  keep  and  make  public  a  national  electronic  register  of  the  EETS  domains  within  their 
territory  by  July  2010.  The  register  had  to  include  1)  all  the  necessary  information  for 
EETS providers wanting to enter their markets and 2) data on EETS providers which were 
granted registration in a given Member State;  

  to  set  up  national  conciliation  bodies  to  facilitate  mediation  between  toll  chargers  and 

EETS providers. 

Half  of  the  Member  States  (i.e.  Belgium,  Bulgaria,  Croatia,  Czech  Republic,  Germany, 
Greece, Hungary, Luxemburg, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, UK) have not correctly 
and fully implemented these requirements. This, as explained in the beginning of this section, 
already  led  to  infringement  procedures  against  eight  Member  States.  The  most  common 
infringement  is  the  failure  to  publish  complete  registers  of  EETS  domains,  which  creates 
insurmountable  obstacles  to  the  entry  of  EETS  providers  on  the  local  markets.  Most 
concerned  Member  States  have  not  started  preparations  to  publish  the  register  of  EETS 
domains before being recalled of this obligation by the Commission in the framework of the 
infringement procedure.  

The EETS Directive lists in its Annex the technical, procedural and legal items required for 
the  definition  and  deployment  of  the  European  Electronic  Toll  Service.  The  list  includes 
notably  the  operational  procedures  for  the  service,  its  functional  specifications,  technical 

15 

 
specifications  of  the  equipment,  transactional  models,  procedures  for  the  verification  of  the 
technical  performance  of  the  equipment,  parameters  for  vehicle  classification,  rules  on 
protecting fundamental rights of the individuals, harmonising rules related to enforcement and 
conflict  resolution  procedures.  Although  these  items  have  not  been  further  defined  in  the 
subsequent  Decision,  Article  4  of  the  Directive  clearly  states  that  "the  European  Electronic 
Toll  Service  shall  be  based  on  [them]".  12  Member  State  administrations,21  Norway  and 
Switzerland have been working in the framework of the so-called 'Stockholm Group'22 on the 
approximation of these elements; however, the results of this work have hardly been reflected 
in the implementation of the national systems. In particular: 

  The operational procedures for the service are different, and sometimes incompatible 
between different schemes. One amongst many examples of such difference is the way 
DSRC  OBUs  must  be  attached  to  the  windshield  to  enable  effective  reading  by  the 
roadside  equipment.  Depending  on  whether  roadside  antennas  are  installed  above  or 
parallel to the road, OBU antennas should – respectively – be in a close to vertical or 
close to parallel position.23 

  Functional specifications of the service are defined for each toll domain in abstraction 

of the key performance indicators imposed in other toll domains.  

  Most  schemes  use  established  standards  to  define  the  technical  specifications  of  the 
equipment. However, several of the existing standards allow for certain flexibility in 
the implementation. As  an example, the standard for back-office  interfaces (EN ISO 
12855) allows toll chargers to request additional elements on top of those listed in the 
standard. Member States have used this flexibility, defining technical specifications of 
the equipment which are not always compatible between toll domains. 

  The  EETS  legislation  does  not  specify  the  standard  transaction  model  to  be  used. 
Some  toll  chargers  choose  the  "reseller  model",  where  the  toll  service  provider  acts 
and invoices road users in his/her own name; other toll chargers privilege the "agency 
model",  where  the toll service provider  is  merely  the agent of the toll  charger  –  this 
has  a  number  of  negative  consequences  for  the  service  provider,  including  the 
impossibility  to  issue  a  single  invoice  and,  in  some  extreme  cases,  the  obligation  to 
have a banking licence.24 

  The  procedures  for  the  verification  of  the  technical  performance  of  the  tolling 
equipment (OBUs, roadside equipment, interfaces, etc.) are not standardised. The cost 
of a full test cycle can range from 100,000 (e.g. average cost to test suitability for use 
in one concession in France) to 200,000 (e.g. cost of testing suitability for use in the 
single tolling system covering the whole territory of Belgium) EUR per toll domain. 
Typically, the toll service provider bears the largest part of these costs. The cycle must 
be repeated as many times as there are toll domains in Europe (more than 140 today). 
A few tests are done jointly for several toll domains (e.g. French concessionaires run a 
join test centre, which explains the lower cost per domain), but compatibility to certain 
domain-specific requirements and end-to-end tests must be checked individually. 

21 Finland, Sweden, Ireland, UK, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria, Slovenia and Hungary 
22 The Stockholm Group is the informal platform of national authorities on tolling-related issues. The membership includes 
12 EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland. 
23 4icom, op.cit. note 15. 
24 Contribution of AETIS to the targeted consultation. 

16 

 
                                                 
  The division of vehicles into toll classes is different in each tolling scheme: 

–  Most  toll  domains  in  Europe  classify  vehicles  according  to  their  number  of 
axles; however, the Belgian HGV tolling scheme introduced in 2016 classifies 
them according to the maximum permissible laden weight; 

–  Similarly,  most  HGV  tolling  schemes  cover  all  vehicles  above  3.5  tonnes  of 
total permissible laden weight. In Germany, however, this limit is fixed at 7.5 
tonnes (previously 12 tonnes); 

–  It is mandatory, under the provisions of Directive 1999/62/EC, to differentiate 
toll  rates  by  the  EURO  emissions  class  of  the  lorry.  However,  toll  domains 
cluster different EURO norms together (e.g. same toll for EURO norms 0-III); 
this clustering is different in each toll domain. 

  The legislative framework on the protection of personal data is not the same across the 
EU; this influences the design of the schemes and the interfaces with potential EETS 
providers.  In  Germany,  requirements  of  the  legislation  on  data  protection  were 
reportedly one of the reasons for choosing a "thick" OBU,25 while 'thin' OBUs26 are a 
more natural solution for EETS providers. The requirements in terms of data storage 
and computing powers are less demanding in a thin OBU than in a thick OBU, as the 
thin OBU is no more than a communication interface, but it can potentially raise issues 
related to the protection of personal data, as information on the exact location of the 
vehicle is sent to the back office. 

  Finally,  most  toll  chargers  have  not  specified,  nor  harmonised,  the  contractual 
arrangements which they want to apply to EETS providers in fields such as financial 
guarantee  requirements,  service  remuneration,  invoicing  policy,  etc.  The  publication 
of such information in the EETS registers is an obligation for the Member States under 
the provisions of Article 19 and Annex I of the Decision. In the rare cases when the 
information is published, there requirements are not consistent between toll domains. 

All the above issues have been identified in the reports of the REETS project.27 The latter also 
provided recommendations on how relevant stakeholders should address these shortcomings. 
However,  to  the  Commission's  knowledge  these  recommendations  have  so  far  largely  not 
been put in practice. 

25 A 'thick' GNSS OBU is an on-board unit which establishes the position of the vehicle, compares it with digital maps stored 
in its memory, on this basis calculates the toll due and sends only this information to the back office.  
26 A 'thin' OBU is an on-board unit which establishes the position of the vehicle and send the information to the back office. 
The calculation of the toll due takes place there. 
27 Cf. REETS publications, activities 1-4, 
http://reets.eu/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=categories&Itemid=109  

17 

 
                                                 
REETS project 

In  2013-2015,  the  Commission  co-financed  a  regional  interoperability  project  REETS 
involving  Member  State  administrations,  toll  chargers  and  toll  service  providers  from  7 
EU Member States (Poland, Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Denmark) and from 
Switzerland.  The  project  aimed  at  facilitating  deployment  of  interoperable  toll  services 
first among these countries, in which most of the EU transit traffic takes place. The project 
consisted  of  two  phases.  In  an  analytical  phase,  which  ran  from  January  till  September 
2014,  the  partners  analysed  the  framework  conditions  for  the  possible  deployment  of 
interoperable services in the REETS region: contractual framework and risk management, 
rules  on  the  certification  processes,  key  performance  indicators  used  in  different  toll 
domains,  back  office  interface  solutions,  and  possible  ways  to  manage  interoperability. 
The analytical phase identified problems – including those related to the existing EU legal 
framework  –  which  delay  the  achievement  of  interoperability  and  which  also  risked 
jeopardising  the  success  of  the  deployment  phase.  After  the  analytical phase,  the  project 
entered  the  deployment  phase:  from  the  project  side,  this  phase  mainly  consisted  of 
monitoring and reporting on the ongoing negotiations between service providers and toll 
chargers for the provision of interoperable tolling services. The deployment phase of the 
project nominally ended on 31 December 2015. Nevertheless, REETS partners decided to 
continue  monitoring  and  co-ordinating  interoperability  negotiations  even  after  the 
Commission finished co-financing the project. The new co-operation agreement is called 
the EETS Facilitation Platform (EFP). 

Five  of  the  national  electronic  tolling  schemes  are  not  fully  EETS  compliant  because  they 
were  designed  and  now  are  operated  by  private  partners  chosen  through  public  tendering 
processes before or right after the Directive or the Decision defining the EETS were adopted. 
This  is  the  case  of  the  Austrian  (operational  in  2004),  German  (operational  in  2005  and 
developed before 2003) and Czech (operational since 2007) HGV tolling schemes; the Slovak 
and Polish HGV tolling schemes (deployed, respectively, in 2010 and 2011) were put in place 
right after the adoption of the Decision, and hence the tender for the operation of the system 
could not take its provisions fully into account. Article 5.1 of the EETS Decision requires toll 
chargers to "assess the problems [of non-compliance] and […] take remedial action in view to 
ensure EETS interoperability of the toll system". This has so far not been entirely done for all 
the above schemes except the Austrian one. In particular: 

  In  Germany,  the  toll  charger  is  reluctant  to  open  the  market  to  EETS  providers  on  non-
discriminatory basis. The current contract with the operator of the system gives to the latter 
monopoly  rights  and  changing  the  contract  in  course  could  imply  for  Germany  the 
obligation  to  compensate  the  operator  for  the  lost  revenues.  However,  Germany  has 
adapted  the  system  to  EETS  from  a  technical  point  of  view,  by  gradually  adding  CEN 
DSRC  antennas  to  enforcement  gantries,  replacing  or  adding  to  the  previously  used 
infrared DSRC. 

  In the Czech Republic, the DSRC antennas are not fully compatible with the CEN DSRC 
standard.  The  toll  charger  is  also  reluctant  to  open  the  market  for  the  same  reasons  as 
evoked for Germany. 

18 

 
 
  In Poland, new entrants cannot access the market because the legislation has not yet been 

updated in line with the EETS Decision.28 

The French 'Écotaxe' HGV national tolling scheme,29 which was supposed to be deployed in 
2013,  was  expected  to  be  fully  EETS-compliant.    However,  the  project  was  suspended  and 
abolished  just  before  its  launch  by  decision  of  the  government  following  public 
demonstrations in different regions of France against the idea of introducing a toll for heavy 
goods vehicles. Also the Hungarian toll is potentially open to all toll service providers, even 
though so far only Hungarian players managed to access the scheme.30 The Belgian HGV toll, 
deployed  in  April  2016,  initially  raised  some  concerns  among  prospective  EETS  providers 
regarding its EETS readiness. The system has opened to EETS providers in extremis, with the 
EETS  provider  Axxès  signing  a  contract  for  the  provision  of  toll  collection  services  on  the 
day preceding the launch of the scheme. Other EETS providers have not managed to enter the 
Belgian market so far (state of play in January 2017). 

In general, it can be said that Member States and toll chargers have so far – with few notable 
exceptions – given low interest and priority to the objective of cross-border interoperability of 
electronic  tolling  schemes.  Concession  holders  in  a  few  Member  States  (France,  Ireland, 
Spain and Portugal) were the first to re-organise themselves along the EETS model. When the 
toll chargers are public administrations, the willingness to adapt to the requirements of EETS 
is generally lower. 

To  date  six  companies  –  AGES  (DE),  Axxès  (FR),  Brobizz  (DK),  Eurotoll  (FR),  Telepass 
(IT)  and  Total  (FR)  have  been  officially  registered  as  EETS  providers.  However  –  mostly 
because  of  the  hurdles  described  above  –  AGES  has  since  stopped  operations  in  the  EETS 
market,  while  Brobizz,  Eurotoll,  Telepass  and  Total  did  not  make  significant  progress  in 
terms of market coverage compared to the situation before their registration (although all four 
are known to be in the process of testing their equipment and negotiating contracts in a few 
toll domains). 

5.2.  Current situation 

5.2.1.  State of play – interoperability of electronic tolls 

(1) 

Light vehicles 

As illustrated in Figure 4 in Annex 5, light vehicle (car, van and minibus) users are subject to 
electronic tolling on significant parts of the road networks in Croatia, France, Greece, Ireland, 
Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In most of these tolling schemes, users can choose between 
electronic  tolling  requiring  the  presence  on  board  of  the  vehicle  of  an  OBU  and  manual 
payment  of  the  toll  (at  the  toll  booths).  Systems  are  largely  interoperable  inside  each  State 
(e.g.  the  Liber-T  agreement  allows  users  to  pay  tolls  on  all  conceded  motorways  in  France 
with one OBU and one invoice); cross-border agreements are typically signed between local 

28  This  has  recently  changed,  as  legislation  adopted  in  the  second  half  of  2016  finally  allows  the  remuneration  of  EETS 
providers, and contains other elements necessary for EETS to function. However, no EETS provider has yet tried to enter the 
Polish market to check if the latter has become entirely open. 
29 The Écotaxe was a planned satellite-based electronic tolling system for HGVs, applied on 15,000 km of national roads in 
France. 
30  Cf.  list  of  audited  Toll  Declaration  Operators:  https://www.hu-go.hu/articles/article/the-list-of-the-first-audited-toll-
declaration-operators. 

19 

 
                                                 
toll chargers on two sides of the border – e.g. the French OBU can also be used in northern 
Spain. 

(2) 

Heavy duty vehicles 

Regarding heavy duty vehicles, electronic tolling with OBUs is (nearly31) the only available 
payment  method  in  eight  Member  States  (Austria,  Belgium,  Czech  Republic,  Germany, 
Hungary,  Poland,  Portugal,  Slovakia).  In  other  countries  with  electronic  tolling  system  (i.e. 
Croatia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia and Spain) both manual and electronic tolling 
are available. 

As  in  the  case  of  light  vehicles,  systems  are  largely  interoperable  inside  each  State.  The 
following cross-border interoperability agreements have also been reached: 

  One-way technical interoperability agreements between Austria and Germany, and between 
Austria  and  Switzerland:  Since  its  launch  in  2004,  the  Austrian  HGV  tolling  system 
accepted Swiss OBUs as valid toll declaration tool. In 2011, the same became possible with 
the  German  OBU.  In  both  cases,  interoperability  works  one  way  only,  and  is  limited  to 
technical aspects, i.e. the equipment used; separate contracts must still be signed by clients 
with each toll charger. 

  Agreements between toll domains using the DSRC technology: Since 2013, it is possible to 
pay tolls with one OBU in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Austria (EasyGo+ agreement). 
Initially  developed  on  the  basis  of a  pure  agreement  between  toll chargers, the  system  is 
now evolving to allow independent toll service providers to offer their services in the area. 
Thanks  to  this  evolution,  providers  already  active  in  France,  Spain,  Portugal  and  Italy 
could  start  negotiating  access  to  the  service.  If  these  negotiations  are  successfully 
concluded,  it  will  soon be  possible to  travel  on the toll  roads  of  all  seven  countries  –  all 
using  the  DSRC  technology  –  with  one  OBU  issued  by  third  party  toll  service  providers 
and a single monthly invoice (if all toll chargers adopt the re-seller transaction model – cf. 
section 5.1 for details). 

  Hungary: the  electronic tolling system in  Hungry is  technically  ready to connect  to third 
party toll service providers. However, despite the system being operational since 2013, so 
far no toll service providers from abroad entered the market. 

5.2.2.  State of play – costs and hassle linked to electronic tolls 

(1) 

Cost of setting up an electronic tolling system 

Member  States  face  significant  costs  for  setting  up  an  electronic  tolling  system.  Moreover, 
from available data (see Table 1 below), it appears that the initial investment needed for the 
toll  charger  to  set  up  an  electronic  tolling  system  has  not  significantly  changed  over  the 
evaluation  period,  averaging  at  over  650  million  EUR.  It  seems  also  that  there  is  no  strong 
correlation between the technology chosen and the network coverage. The notable exception 
of  a  low  price  of  the  Hungarian  system  can  be  explained  however  by  the  choice  of  a 
completely  different  architecture  compared  to  other  systems  (lower  accuracy  requirements, 

31 In Germany, Hungary and Slovakia it is also possible to buy 'tickets' for a given route, but it is relatively burdensome and 
not flexible (not possible to divert from the pre-established route). 

20 

 
                                                 
use  of  pre-existing  equipment,  minimum  enforcement  infrastructure,  etc.).  This  special  case 
will be further analysed and explained in the answers to specific evaluation questions. 

System 

Technology 

Network coverage 

Year 

Cost (EUR) 

Austria 

Germany 

Slovakia 

DSRC 

GNSS 

GNSS 

Motorways only 

Motorways and certain federal roads 

Motorways, first and second class roads 

France 

GNSS 

Certain motorways, national roads and 
certain regional roads 

2004 

2005 

2010 

2013 (but 
later 
aborted) 

750 million32 

700 million33 

800 million34 

650 million35 

Hungary 

GNSS 

Motorways and first class roads 

2013 

<100 million36 

Table 1: Initial investment to set up electronic tolling schemes in the EU37 

(2) 

Cost of operation 

Due to data heterogeneity, it is difficult to establish clear patterns in the cost of operation of 
different  systems,  which  seem  to  depend  on  many  factors  such  as  number  of  vehicles, 
intensity of traffic, technology, network coverage, etc. The only clear pattern emerging is the 
decrease of the costs of operation throughout the lifetime of the individual systems. 

System 

Technology 

Network coverage 

Initial operating costs 
(year) 

Current 
operating 
costs (year) 

France 

GNSS 

Certain motorways, national 
roads and certain regional 
roads 

224 million EUR/year, 18% 
of tolls collected (2013) 38 

N/A39 

Austria 

DSRC 

Motorways only 

10-11% of tolls collected40 
(2004) 

4.5%41 (2015) 

Germany 

GNSS 

Motorways and certain federal 
roads 

18% of tolls collected 
(2006)42 

12% (2014)43 

Hungary 

GNSS 

Motorways and first class 
roads 

Ca. 40 million EUR/year, 
6.5% tolls collected (2013)44 

Same as initial 
operating costs 

Table 2: Cost of operating different electronic tolling schemes in the EU  

32  Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 10 
33  Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 10 
34  Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 10 
35   4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op. cit. note 17. 
36  Zoltán  Varga, 

Introduction  of  HU-GO, 

the  Hungarian  distance  based  electronic 

toll 

system,  2014 

http://ibtta.org/sites/default/files/documents/2014/14Prague/Varga_Zoltan.pdf.  

37  The  table  contains  data  for  those  countries,  where  the  initial  investment  costs  could  be  clearly  established.  E.g.  for  the 
Belgian system, only the total payment to Satellic, who operates the system, is publicly available 1.6 Billion EUR over 12 
years.  

38   4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op. cit. note 17. 
39  The  project  was  suspended  and  abolished  just  before  its  launch  by  decision  of  the  government  following  public 

demonstrations in different regions of France. 

40  Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 10. 
41  ASFINAG 
42  Answer of Toll Collect to the targeted consultation. 
43  Answer of Toll Collect to the targeted consultation. 
44  op. cit. note 34.  

21 

 
                                                 
(3) 

Cost of equipment 

The cost of on-board units, both in the DSRC and in the GNSS technology, fell by half over 
the  evaluation  period  to  respective  averages  of  8-15  EUR  and  90-150  EUR.45  The  cost  of 
ANPR cameras, which are used for enforcement in all the systems, and as primary method of 
toll  collection  in  few  of  them,  and  the  cost  of  gantries  over  the roads (which  would  mainly 
depend  on  the  cost  of  steel  and  on  the  cost  of  public  works  to  ensure  power  supply  and 
connection to data networks) have not evolved.46 

(4) 

Cost and hassle for users 

For  light  vehicles,  the  cost  and  hassle  remained  at  a  low  level,  as  confirmed  by  the 
contributions  of  motorists'  associations  to  the  targeted  public  consultation47.  Car  drivers  are 
usually  satisfied  with  the  manual  tolling  alternative,  which  exists  for  them  on  nearly  all 
motorways  where  they  are  subject  to  tolls.  Moreover,  cars  do  not  often  go  abroad,  and 
therefore do not need cross-border interoperability as much as the lorries. 

increased  by  5  over 

the  evaluation  period.  Thanks 

For lorries the situation looks different, as illustrated in Table 3. The number of nation-wide 
schemes  has 
to  cross-border 
interoperability  agreements  which  were  signed  in  the  meantime,  notably  between  Portugal, 
France and Spain, on the one hand, and between Austria and the Nordic countries (EasyGo+) 
on the other, the number of OBUs needed to travel unhindered across the EU increased only 
by  two.  However,  the  number  of  most  expensive  GNSS  OBU  went  from  1  to  4,  which 
explains  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  OBUs  needed.  Also,  the  introduction  of  electronic  tolling 
systems  in  non-Eurozone  countries  (Poland,  Czech  Republic,  Slovakia,  and  Hungary) 
increased the hassle due to the treatment of invoices (and payments) in different currencies. 

Year 

2004 

2009 

2016 

Number of nationwide 
schemes + Oresund 

Number of 
DSRC OBUs 

Number of 
GNSS OBUs 

11 

12 

16 

9 

10 

9 

1 

1 

4 

Number of 
invoicing 
entities 

Total cost of 
OBUs (EUR)48 

11 

12 

13 

162-285 

170-300 

432-735 

Table  3:  Number  of  schemes  and  on-board  units  needed  to  travel  unhindered  on  all  EU  roads  on 
international importance49 

More  information  on  the  evolution  of  costs  for  users  and  toll  chargers  is  presented  in  the 
answer to evaluation question 5 (part 7.1.5). 

45  Source:  4icom,  Steer  Davies  Gleave,  op.  cit.  note  17.  Confirmed  by  ASFA,  ASFINAG,  Ireland,  Germany,  Flanders, 
Poland, Portugal, Toll Collect in their answers to the targeted consultation. 
46 Cf. the answers of Flanders, Ireland to the targeted consultation. 
47 Answers of ADAC and ÖAMTC to the targeted consultation. 
48 Based on the assumption that a DSRC OBU costs 8-15 EUR, and a GNSS OBU costs 90-150 EUR – source: 4icom, Steer 
Davies Gleave, op. cit. note 17. 
49 The numbers in the first four columns are own calculations based on the maps in Annex 5. 

22 

 
                                                 
6.  ANSWERS TO THE EVALUATION QUESTIONS 

6.1.  Effectiveness 

6.1.1.  Question 1: Have the provisions of the Directive and of the Decision led 
to the technical, contractual and procedural interoperability of electronic 
tolls? What has hindered/contributed to the achievement of this objective? 

Apart  from  national,  and  a  handful  of  very  limited  regional  interoperability  agreements,  the 
implementation  of 
technical,  procedural  or  contractual 
leading 
interoperability has not been achieved in the EU. 

the  provisions 

to 

6.1.1.1.Contractual interoperability 

Most fuel cards50 can be used to pay tolls in different Member States. More than just easing 
the payment, fuel card providers (such as DKV, Shell, Total, OMV, Ressa, UTA, Trafineo)51 
actually act as intermediaries between toll chargers and road users, taking care for the latter of 
administrative formalities such  as  registration in the toll  charger's database, shipment  of the 
on-board unit and financial brokering including financial guarantees. De facto, the customer's 
main counterpart is thus the fuel card provider and not the toll charger. These services come at 
a cost which can vary 1 and 4% of the tolls paid,52 depending on the array of services offered 
and  the  geographical  coverage.  Indeed,  none  of  the  fuel  card  providers  offers  his/her 
brokering services in all toll domains in the EU.53 

Similar  services  are  offered  by  more  profiled  companies  which  specialise  in  toll  payments, 
such as Eurotoll, LogPay or WAG. 

The  services  of  the  fuel  card/payment  services  providers  therefore  partly  contribute  to  the 
objective  of  contractual  interoperability  (as  they  reduce  the  administrative  burden  for  users 
linked  to  the  need  to  deal  with  many  toll  chargers).  However,  users  have  a  contractual 
relationship with each toll charger, and the services they receive from their fuel card providers 
are not available all across the EU. A higher level of contractual interoperability is offered by 
toll  service  providers  such  as  Axxès,  DKV,  Eurotoll,  Total,  Telepass.  Beyond  obtaining 
payment  services,  like  from  fuel  car  providers, the  clients  of  these  toll  service  providers  do 
not  need  to  enter  into  contractual  relations  with  the  toll  chargers,  the  toll  service  providers 
being their sole counterparts. The services of these companies are therefore the same as those 
of EETS providers (and Axxès, Eurotoll, Total and Telepass all recently became registered as 
EETS  providers),  but  unlike  the  latter  they  are  active  in  a  handful  of  Member  States  only, 
namely France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium (only Axxès) and Italy (only Telepass). 

6.1.1.2. Technical interoperability 

The necessary basis for technical interoperability (i.e. the compatibility of equipment used by 
different parties in different toll domains) has been laid down by, on the  one hand side, the 
provision of Art. 2.1 of the EETS Directive, which listed the technologies allowed to be used 

50  A  fuel  (fleet)  card  is  a  payment  card  typically  issued  by  an  oil  company  or  specialised  financial  intermediaries  and 
primarily used for the purchase of fuel at gas station. Typically, however, a wider range of products and services can be paid 
with fleet cards: meals at gas stations, tolls, insurance, etc. 
51  These fuel card providers are members of AETIS. Other providers exist outside this organisation. 
52 4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op. cit. note 17. 
53 As reported by the IRU in their answer to the targeted consultation. 

23 

 
                                                 
for electronic tolling in the EU and, on the other hand side, the standardisation work which 
delivered  main  standards  for  electronic  tolling  such  as  the  EN  15509  on  the  DSRC 
communication  between  the  OBU  and  the  roadside  equipment,  the  TS  16331  on  the 
communication between the OBU and the back office of the toll service provider, or finally 
the  EN  12855  on  the  interfaces  between  the  back  offices  of  the  toll  charger  and  of  the  toll 
service provider. 

In practice, this technical interoperability is however limited. One on-board unit is compatible 
with the electronic tolling systems in Portugal, France, Spain and Italy. Another one can be 
used to pay tolls in Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Finally, a third type of OBU can 
be used both in Germany and in Austria. Elsewhere a different OBU is needed to pay tolls in 
each Member State. 

6.1.1.3. Procedural interoperability 

The EETS Directive identified in  its  Annex the procedural items essential for the definition 
and  deployment  of  the  European  Electronic  Toll  Service.  However,  these  items  have  not 
eventually  been  harmonised  in  the  EETS  Decision.  As  a  result,  the  procedures  adopted  by 
different  toll  chargers  in  the  different  Member  States  were  not  always  consistent  with  each 
other, as explained in details in section 5.1. 

The Stockholm Group54 has been working to develop commonly acceptable solutions, but the 
results of this work have not always been enforced by the participating Member States. Also 
standards, developed by European standardisation bodies under mandated from the European 
Commission,  proved  so  far  not  to  be  specific  enough  to  ensure  the  harmonisation  of 
procedures. 

level  of  procedural 

interoperability  has  been  achieved 

A  certain 
inside  regional 
interoperability  agreements.  Toll  chargers  participating  in  EasyGo+  (Austria,  Norway, 
Denmark  and  Sweden)  have  developed,  for  instance,  a  common  interface  to  exchange 
information with toll service providers. In France, a big part of the procedure of testing new 
on-board units is done only once for all the toll domains in the country. Discussions are also 
taking  place  inside  the  REETS/EFP  region  on  the  possible  approximation  of  certain 
procedures in all participating countries. The possible results of these discussions in terms of 
greater  procedural  interoperability  could  materialise  in  the  upcoming  years.  As  an  example, 
AETIS  is  discussing  with  the  toll  chargers  partners  in  REETS  the  advantages  for  EETS  of 
choosing the re-seller transaction model over the agency model. 

6.1.2.  Question 2: Have the standards imposed by legislation been sufficient to 
render  e-tolling  systems  technologically  compatible?  If  not,  what  is  the 
reason for that? 

To  achieve  technological  compatibility  in  the  world  of  electronic  tolling,  it  is  essential  to 
harmonise two interfaces: 

  The  interface  between  the  on-board  unit  (OBU)  of  the  toll  service  provider  and  the 

roadside equipment (RSE) of the toll charger; and 

54 The Stockholm Group is the informal platform of national authorities on tolling-related issues. The membership includes 
13 EU Member States and Switzerland. 

24 

 
                                                 
  The interface between the back offices of the toll charger and of the toll service provider. 

For  the  first  interface,  two  profiled  standard  have  been  developed  and  their  use  is  rendered 
mandatory  by the EETS Directive. These are the standards on DSRC charging transactions: 
EN  15509,  applicable  across  the  EU,  and  ETSI  ES  200674-1,  which  can  be  used  on  Italian 
territory. 

Still  in  the  framework  of  the  first  interface,  a  standard  has  been  developed  for  real-time 
compliance check. This standard (ISO 12813)  is essential in the framework  of GNSS-based 
schemes, in which communication with roadside equipment is the main enforcement method. 
However, the standard for real-time compliance check has not been referred to in the EETS 
legislation. 

The interface between the back offices of the toll charger and of the toll service provider has 
so far not been sufficiently harmonised. The existing standard ISO 12855 is a toolbox (i.e. a 
standard  with  many  variants).  It  has  been  developed  mainly  with  DSRC-based  systems  in 
mind, and does not meet the complex data exchange requirements in the framework of GNSS-
based systems. So-called Interoperable Application Profiles (IAP) for the ISO 12855 standard 
(i.e. more precise standards, fitting more specific needs) have recently been adopted under the 
number CEN/TS 16986 and are reportedly referenced for future inclusion in the relations with 
EETS providers in the German tolling scheme, but not yet in any other existing system. 

Specific  test  standards  are  also  required  for  testing  the  compatibility  of  equipment  and 
systems  with  the  requirements  of  the  abovementioned  standards.  Such  test  standards  have 
been developed for the DSRC-related standards. These are respectively the test standard ISO 
15876 for EN 15509, and test standard ISO 13143 for ISO 12813. 

The same cannot be said about the interface between back offices. Test standards for the IAP 
for ISO 12855 are still in the process of being developed. 

The clear and good definition of the DSRC standards undeniably contributed to the progress 
observed in Europe in terms of interoperability of DSRC-based electronic tolling systems (cf. 
section 5.2.1). On the other hand, the lack of as precise standards for GNSS-based schemes 
contributes  to  the  delay  in  achieving  interoperability  with-  and  between  GNSS-based 
systems.55 

6.1.3.  Question 3: Has the integration of on-board units with other devices such 
as  e-call  or  the  digital  tachograph  happened  and  if  so  did  it  allow  for 
reduction  of  the  costs?  Is  it  technically  feasible  and  does  it  have  the 
potential to reduce costs? 

The objective to integrate on-board units with other legally required devices, such as e-call or 
the  digital  tachograph,  has  not  been  achieved.  The  implementation  of  this  objective  is 
impeded  by the fact  that  on-board units  for each tolling scheme are developed according  to 
the proprietary requirements of each toll charger. Moreover, on-board units evolve all the time 
in  line  with  changes  to  particular  toll  domains,  while  the  specifications  of  the  highly 
standardised  tachograph  or  e-call  remain  stable  as  e.g.  the  tachograph  must  be  protected 

55  Sources  used  for  answering  this  question:  (1)  Presentation  of  the  German  Ministry  of  Transport  and  Infrastructure 
"Electronic Fee Collection Standardisation Current status and future activities" given at the meeting of the Toll Committee on 
9 November 2015; contributions of Siemens and AETIS to the targeted consultation. 

25 

 
                                                 
against  changes  to  prevent  tampering.56  Therefore,  the  integration  of  OBUs  with  the  digital 
tachograph or e-call could only be envisaged once OBUs are standardised across the EU, and 
even  in  this  case  would  be  difficult  given  the  typical  frequency  of  changes  to  the  OBU 
software. 

The  question  arises  as  to  the  actual  existence  of  potential  savings  resulting  from  the 
integration of OBUs with the digital tachograph or e-call. The tachograph and e-call must be 
protected from malicious interventions to preserve their functions. OBUs, on the other hand, 
must receive constant software updates to reflect changes in the tolling environment. It would 
therefore seem that, for security reasons, full integration of the tachograph and e-call with the 
OBU would not be possible. It could be imagined, however, that the devices share some of the 
hardware, like the DSRC antenna in the upcoming smart tachograph. The cost of such parts is 
however extremely low, and the benefits from sharing their use would probably be lower than 
the costs of ensuring the integrity of the primary functions of the tachograph and e-call. 

However, there are examples of integrating the OBU with devices present in the vehicle other 
than the tachograph or e-call: in Ireland, France or Italy, some of the on-board units can also 
be used to pay parking fees in non-public parking lots;57 The Hungarian tolling scheme allows 
for the use of commercial tracking and tracing equipment instead of dedicated on-board units 
to declare tolling data; the OBU of Axxès can also be used for fleet management. 

Integration of OBUs with other devices is therefore possible as shown by the above examples. 
However, where commercial devices designed for other use (e.g. tracking and tracing devices 
in  Hungary)  are  used  instead  of  dedicated  OBUs,  additional  efforts  must  be  deployed  for 
enforcement. Indeed, such devices can be turned off at any moment to evade the obligation to 
pay the toll. 

6.1.4.  Question 4: To what extent did toll chargers comply with the requirement 
to  use  only  three  technologies?  To  what  extent  did  it  help  achieve 
interoperability? Did it have any unintended effects?  

According  to  information  available  to  the  Commission  and  confirmed  by  Member  States 
during the consultation for this evaluation, toll chargers have nearly totally (with exception to 
four cases, to the Commission's knowledge) complied with the requirement to choose among 
the three technologies provided for in the EETS Directive. For further details see a Section 2.2 
and 5.1. 

As confirmed notably by the (prospective) EETS providers gathered in the association AETIS 
and by an equipment manufacturer (Kapsch) during the targeted consultation, this high level 
of  compliance  helped  achieve  the  existing  interoperability  among  different  DSRC-based 
tolling schemes – mostly at the national level, but also between some specific countries. 

The unintended effects of the requirement to use only three technologies are discussed in the 
answer to question 8 (part 7.1.8). 

56 Cf. notably the answer of Kapsch to the targeted consultation. 
57 Answer by Transport Infrastructure Ireland to the targeted consultation; road users' contributions.  

26 

 
 
                                                 
6.1.5.  Question  5:  Has  the  cost  of  setup  and  maintenance  of  electronic  toll 
systems  for  toll  chargers  changed?  Has  the  compliance  cost  and  hassle 
for tolled road users changed? If so, can this be attributed to the effects of 
the evaluated legislation?  

(1) 

Cost for toll chargers 

As mentioned in sections 5.2.2 (1) and (2), available evidence (c.f. Table 1) indicates that the 
investment  needed  to  setup  and  launch  a  network-wide  electronic  tolling  scheme  has 
remained  at  a  similar  level  over  the  evaluation  period.  Similarly,  while  for  a  single  system 
operating  costs  tend  to  diminish  with  time,  the  level  of  these  costs  in  the  first  year  of 
operations seems to be the same for systems launched ten years ago and today. 

The  operating  costs  diminishing  over  time  in  different  schemes  indicate  a  high  potential  of 
cost reduction through a learning process.  It can be safely assumed  that  this potential  could 
also materialise, from the very beginning, in each new tolling schemes deployed, if there was 
sufficient exchange of best practices between toll chargers. The fact that setup and operating 
costs  are  as  high  in  most  recent  schemes  as  they  were  in  schemes  introduced  ten  years  ago 
shows that the EETS legislation failed to put in place effective incentives for toll chargers to 
exchange best practices and to build upon past experience. 

One  network-wide  electronic  tolling  scheme  stands  out  from  the  crowd.  It  is  the Hungarian 
HGV  tolling  schemes,  the  deployment  of  which  cost  between  1/8  and  1/6  of  the  cost  of 
comparable systems in other Member States, and the operation of which costs much less (the 
scarcity  of  data  does  not  allow  to  estimate  exactly  by  how  much).  The  system  is  said  to 
achieve lower performance levels (notably in terms of enforcement effectiveness) compared 
to other systems in the EU, nevertheless it meets the objectives of the Hungarian authorities in 
terms  of  toll  collection  and  offers  similar  flexibility  as  elsewhere  in  the  EU.  The  fact  that 
Hungary  remains  the  only  Member  State  to  date  to  have  opted  for  such  a  'cheap'  solution 
shows that the EETS legislation did not put in place effective incentives for toll chargers to 
opt for the most economically efficient technical solutions for electronic tolling. 

(2) 

Cost and hassle for tolled road users 

According  to  sections  5.2.2  (3)  and  (4),  the  production  cost  of  OBUs  fell  by  half  over  the 
evaluation period, but this positive evolution was not entirely reflected in the prices paid by 
road  users.  In  many  schemes  OBUs  are  rented  to  users  against  a  deposit  which  typically 
exceeds  the  value  of  the  equipment;  in  Poland,  for  example,  the  deposit  for  a  DSRC  OBU 
(manufacturing cost 8-15 EUR) is 30 EUR, and the user's account must be topped up with 30 
EUR.  These  deposits  and  mandatory  top  ups  of  pre-paid  accounts,  when  applied  across 
different  toll  domains  in  the  EU,  amount  to  important  sums  which  hauliers  are  obliged  to 
block, and this negatively affects their cash flow. 

The  reduction  in  the  manufacturing  cost  of  OBUs  can  be  attributed  to  different  factors, 
depending on the specific category of equipment: 

  GNSS on-board units were not in use in the EU before 2005 when the German HGV 
toll was deployed. At the time, it was a rising technology,58 and this fact explained the 

58 4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. footnote 17. 

27 

 
                                                 
high costs of equipment. Today, the technology has reached a certain level of maturity 
– which explains the reduction of prices. It should also be acknowledged that GNSS is 
one of the technologies allowed by the EETS legislation and this fact could have also 
contributed to the decrease in prices. 

  DSRC,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  relatively  mature  technology  already back  in  2004. 
The division of the price of OBUs by two can therefore be, at least partly, attributed to 
the impact of standardisation (EN 15509) mandated by the legislation. Moreover, the 
deployment  of  many  new  schemes,  some  of  which  cover  not  only  heavy  goods 
vehicles,  but  also  private  cars,  greatly  increased  the  number  of  OBUs  in  use,  and 
therefore allowed further economies of scale in the production. 

What can certainly be said is that the evaluated legislation failed to make sure that the falling 
cost of equipment is reflected in a proportionate reduction of the costs for final users. 

Moreover, the number of electronic tolling schemes for lorries and their coverage in Europe 
has greatly increased over the evaluated period. Before 2004, electronic tolling was only an 
add-on to manual toll collection at toll plazas on concession motorways in Southern Europe, 
Ireland and Poland. Therefore, a lorry could drive across the EU without on-board units – the 
latter could only make paying tolls at barriers quicker and smoother. Nowadays, lorries must 
be equipped with a good dozen of OBUs to be able to drive unhindered on all tolled roads in 
the  EU.  Figure  1  illustrates  an  extreme  scenario  of  a  truck,  which  would  travel  to  all  EU 
Member States and therefore need most of the OBUs. 

Figure  1:  A  lorry  equipped  with  the  different  OBUs  needed  to  drive  unhindered  on  EU  roads.  Source: 
4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op. cit. footnote 17 

For light vehicles, the situation today is similar to the one observed in 2004: electronic tolling 
is mainly an alternative to manual payment at toll plazas. In some electronic tolling schemes 
(Portugal, Dartford crossing in the UK, London, Stockholm and others), free-flow tolling has 
been put in place, but it is based on automatic number plate recognition, and therefore does 
not require equipping the car with an OBU. 

Therefore,  the  costs  and  hassle  for  users  (in  particular  lorries)  linked  to  the  obligation  of 
paying  electronic  tolls  increased  over  the  evaluation  period  as  new  free  flow  schemes  have 

28 

 
 
been  introduced.  However,  as  explained  in  section  5.2.2(4)  several  regional  interoperability 
agreements were signed in the meantime and contributed to some reduction of administrative 
burden.  The  explicit  reference  in  the  EETS  Directive  to  the  DSRC  standard  (EN  15509) 
facilitated the achievement of interoperability between microwave-based systems and thus the 
signature of the abovementioned regional agreements. 

Initial interoperability agreements were signed by the toll chargers between themselves. This 
model renders difficult the achievement of interoperability between more than a few partners 
(e.g. the EasyGo interoperability agreement between Norway, Sweden and Denmark). Larger 
interoperability  schemes  require  the  participation  of  (a)  third  party(ies)  to  negotiate 
interoperability with each toll charger on a bilateral basis, avoiding the need for complicated 
multilateral  negotiations.  This  model  of  interoperability  was  provided  for  by  the  EETS 
Decision, which defined the rights and obligations of EETS providers. It can therefore be said 
that larger interoperability projects (such as the one currently negotiated on the margins of the 
REETS project) were facilitated by the EETS legislation. The latter is expected to contribute 
to the reduction of the costs and hassle for road users.  

6.1.6.  Question  6:  Have  the  provisions  of  the  Decision  led  to  the  setup  of  the 
EETS?  What  has  hindered/contributed  to  the  achievement  of  this 
objective? 

The legislation clearly failed to lead to the setup of a European Electronic Toll Service by the 
deadlines  foreseen  in  the  'EETS  Directive'.  The  first  EETS  provider  (AGES  GmbH)  was 
registered  in  Germany  in  2015,  but  since  then  abandoned  its  plans  to  expand  in  the  EETS 
market.  The  second  EETS  provider  (Axxès)  is  operating  in  5  countries,  but  only  in  4 
(Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain) does it operate in all toll domains. The four remaining 
EETS providers cover even smaller networks. 

A short analysis below considers the individual provisions of the Decision which can be held 
responsible for this failure: 

  Article 3 lists the requirements to be fulfilled by companies seeking registration as EETS 
providers. The experience of AGES in the registration process in Germany gave valuable 
feedback  on  the  appropriateness  of  these  conditions.  It  appeared  that  the  lack  of  precise 
definition of what constitutes "appropriate financial standing" (letter (d) of the Article) and 
"global  risk  management  plan"  resulted  in  the  authorities  asking  guarantees,  which  are 
disproportionate  at  the  stage  of  registration.  In  particular,  AGES  was  asked  to  show  a 
detailed  business  plan  for  EETS  operation  in  a  situation  where  the  vast  majority  of  toll 
chargers, including Germany, have not made public the contractual conditions for relations 
with EETS providers – making it impossible to foresee future revenues. 

  Article  4.1  requests  EETS  providers  to  cover  all  EETS  domains  in  the  EU  (over  140 
domains)  within  24  months.  Prospective  EETS  providers  commonly  agree  that  this 
timeline  is  too  short  for  the  conclusion  of  contracts  and  accreditation  procedures. 
Moreover,  any  EETS  provider  would  not  have  the  resources  to  start  negotiations  and 
accreditation  with  over  140  partners  at  the  same  time.  Therefore,  the  requirements  of 
Article  4.1  are  seen  by  potential  EETS  providers  as  a  barrier  to  enter  the  market.59  The 
open  public  consultation  show  that  37  respondents  (51%)    felt  that  the  European  Union 

59 The point has been often raised by AETIS as a problem, notably at the level of the Electronic Toll Committee. 

29 

 
                                                 
should leave the EETS providers to decide which toll domains they want to cover by their 
services.  A  very  large  proportion  (c.80%)  of  respondents  representing  toll  chargers  or 
service  providers  were  in  favour  of  allowing  EETS  providers  to  decide  which  domains 
they should cover. However, only c. 30-35% of respondents from the other interest groups 
agreed  that  the  regulation  should  be  relaxed;  between  50-67%  of  public  authority  and 
‘other’ representing respondents suggested an ‘other solution’, while between c. 45-55% of 
respondents  representing  private  use  and  many/other  transport  modes  suggest  that  the 
current obligation should be maintained. 

  Article 4.10 mentions the need for EETS providers to collaborate with toll chargers in their 
enforcement effort. However, it does not oblige toll chargers/Member States to collaborate 
between themselves (identification of the offenders on the basis of their licence plates and 
exchange  of  data  on  vehicle  registration).  This  complicates  enforcement  of  the  toll 
obligation  for  foreign  drivers  and  thus  makes  cross-border  interoperability/EETS  more 
difficult  to  achieve.  This  goes  in  line  with  the  results  of  the  open  public  consultation  in 
which a large majority (56, or77%) of respondents were in favour of the EU establishing a 
mandatory mechanism for the exchange of data on toll offenders to facilitate recovery of 
unpaid  tolls  (and  only  12%  were  against).  The  division  of  answers  by  main  respondents 
groups follow the above trend.  

  Article 5.3 puts upon Toll Chargers the obligation to "accept on a non-discriminatory basis 
any EETS provider requesting to provide EETS on [their toll domain]". Furthermore, they 
must  aim  at  "complet[ing]  negotiations  within  [24  months]".  While  these  provisions  are 
necessary and important, the obligations of toll chargers are not defined in sufficient detail. 
In particular, the term "non-discriminatory basis" can be subject to interpretation – in two 
Member  States,  this  term  was  interpreted  initially  as  forbidding  discrimination  between, 
rather  than  of  EETS  providers.60  Also,  it  is  not  clear  how  it  can  be  verified  if  the  toll 
charger acts "with the objective to complete negotiations within [24 months]". Normally, 
this  could  be  clarified  by  the  Conciliation  Bodies  referred  to  in  the  last  subparagraph  of 
Article  5.3  and  defined  in  Articles  10  and  11.  However,  Article  11  does  not  give  the 
Conciliation  Bodies  sufficient  power  to  enforce  their  decisions  –  they  have  mainly  a 
consultative role. This issue was underlined by respondents to the open public consultation 
with  36  of  them 50%  supporting the replacement of conciliation bodies with  strong and 
independent  national  entities  to  supervise  the  correct  functioning  of  the  tolling  markets 
(market regulators). A wider range of views is apparent when considering the interests that 
the  respondents  represent.  For  example,  73%  of  respondents  representing  road  freight 
transport  agreed  that  powers  of  conciliation  bodies  should  be  increased  to  enable 
enforcement  of  mediated  outcomes, 
infrastructure 
operators/solution providers and 30-35% of public authorities and private users. 

in  comparison 

to  55%  of 

  Article 7.1 and Annex VI provide rules which must be followed for the determination of 
vehicle classification parameters. However, Annex VI defines these rules in such a broad 
manner,  that  toll  chargers  may  adopt  classifications  based  on  various  incoherent 
parameters. This constitutes a problem for interoperability, in particular when incompatible 
parameters  are  used  in  different  schemes  (e.g.  total  permissible  laden  weight  in  Belgium 
and number of axles in the rest of the EU). 

60 Exchange of information between the Commission and the concerned Member States. 

30 

 
                                                 
  Article  8  provides  for  the  mandatory  separation  of  accounts  in  case  an  organisation 
operates both as a toll charger and an EETS provider. The aim of this provision is to make 
sure  that  EETS  providers  compete  on  a  level  playing  field  and  that  there  is  no  cross-
subsidisation  of  activities.  However,  EETS  providers  do  not  only  compete  against  each 
other, but also against national toll service providers; indeed, the latter provide exactly the 
same services as the EETS providers, but are contracted by default by the toll chargers, as 
part  of  a  package  including  the  setup  and  operation  of  the  electronic  tolling  system. 
Examples of such national toll service providers include Toll Collect in Germany, Kapsch 
in  Austria,  Czech  Republic  and  Poland,  SkyToll  in  Slovakia  or  Satellic  in  Belgium.  The 
effect  of  Article  8  is  therefore  limited  as  it  does  not  also  provide  for  the  separation  of 
accounts  between  the  toll  charger  and  toll  service  providers  (which  are  not  EETS 
providers).  This  analysis  finds  indirect  confirmation  in  the  results  of  the  open  public 
consultation,  where  45  respondents  (63%)  felt  that  EU  legislation  should  provide  for  the 
separation  of  accounts  between  toll  charger  and  toll  service  provider  activities  (to  avoid 
negative  consequences of  vertical  integration),  with  only  15%  opposing  the  measure.  No 
major variations were apparent between interest groups.  

  Annex  III  contains  the  essential  requirements  which  must  be  met  by  EETS  components. 
This should help achieve technical convergence and therefore facilitate interoperability and 
appearance  of  EETS.  Yet,  the  Annex  contains  reference  to  only  two  standards  (on  the 
communication between the OBU and the roadside infrastructure in a DSRC environment) 
which is, as explained in section 6.1.2, insufficient. 

  Annex  IV,  finally,  describes  methods  of  assessing  conformity  to  specifications  and 
suitability for the use  of interoperability constituents.  The Annex is  based  on the general 
rules  provided  for  in  the  "New  approach"  Decision  768/2008/EC61,  which  apply  to 
conformity  assessment  in  all  sectors  from  toys  to  industrial  machinery.  Typically,  there 
should be presumption of conformity to specifications if equipment respects a number of 
defined  standards.  Yet,  the  lack  of  reference  to  standards  in  Annex  III  makes  such  a 
presumption  of  conformity  difficult  to  establish.  Without  a  clear  reference  of  what 
conformity means, it is difficult for a manufacturer or a notified body to actually assess and 
certify conformity.62  

Thus, ambiguities and gaps in the provisions of the EETS Decision have largely hindered the 
setup of the EETS system as a whole. At the same time, certain elements of the EETS have 
been  put  in  place  following  the  adoption  of  the  framework.  The  technical  harmonisation 
introduced by the EETS Directive (i.e. the limitative list of three technologies allowed for use 
in  electronic  tolling  schemes),  a  relatively  mature  standardisation  framework  for  DSRC 
tolling  (as  compared  to  GNSS-based  tolling)  with  reference  to  specific  standards  in  the 
Decision,  and  the  adequate interoperability  architecture  which  introduced  the  role  of  a  third 
party  toll  service  provider,  have  contributed  to  the  appearance/emergence  of  cross-border 
interoperability in certain cases. 

61 Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the 
marketing of products, and repealing Council Decision 93/465/EEC (OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, p. 82). 
62  This  is  one  of  the  main,  initial  findings,  of  the  workshop  on  standardisation  gaps  organised  in  the  framework  of  the 
Notified Bodies Co-ordination Group. 

31 

 
                                                 
6.1.7.  Question  7:  To  what  extent  has  the  legal  framework  led  to  the 
improvement  of  the  internal  market  for  electronic  fee  collections?  What 
factors have contributed to or hindered the achievement of this objective?  

The question of the improvement of the internal market should be analysed from four angles: 

(1) 

Integration of toll chargers 

As explained in section 5.2.2, the development and setup of an electronic tolling system, as 
well  as  its  operation,  has  very  considerable  costs.  These  costs  however  are  not  necessarily 
proportionate to the size of the tolled network and to the number of tolled vehicles. In other 
terms,  the  bigger  the  network  and  the  greater  the  number  of  vehicles  subject  to  the  toll 
obligation,  the  lower  the  costs  of  collecting  the  toll  per  vehicle-kilometre.  Greater 
collaboration  between  toll  chargers,  which  could  range  from  better  co-ordination  of  tolling 
standards and practices to the development of a common system for two or more networks, 
could bring significant savings going into hundreds of millions of EUR. 

Despite  this  huge  savings  potential,  the  only  example  of  such  co-operation  so  far  is  the 
common  electronic  tolling  system  developed  by  the  three  Belgian  regions  (in  Belgium, 
regions  and  not  the  State  are  competent  for  tolling).  The  EETS  legal  framework  does  not 
provide  any  incentives  for  such  collaboration.  For  comparison,  the  'Eurovignette'  Directive 
1999/62/EC  indicates  in  its  Article  8b  that  "Two  or  more  Member  States  may  cooperate  in 
introducing a common system for tolls applicable to their combined territories as a whole."63 

(2) 

Technical interoperability 

As  explained  in  Evaluation  Question  1  (section  6.1.1),  some  technical  interoperability  has 
been achieved in the EU, but not all of it can be attributed to the influence of the European 
legal framework. 

Interoperability between the HGV tolling schemes in France was achieved in 2007 based on 
the operational model developed in the CESARE projects, which was later adopted in the text 
of  the  EETS  Decision.  Interoperability  between  tolling  systems  within  other  countries 
(notably Spain and Ireland) are based on the same model. The legislative process at EU level 
has therefore been instrumental in incentivising the development of technical interoperability 
in these Member States. The same applies to the several cross-border interoperability projects 
such  as  between  France,  Spain  and  Portugal,  or  the  EasyGo+  interoperability  agreement 
between Austria, Norway, Sweden and Denmark64. 

On the contrary, bilateral interoperability agreements such as – for HGVs – between Germany 
and Austria, Switzerland and Austria, or – for passenger cars – between neighbouring regions 
of France and Spain or of Spain and Portugal, are not built on the EETS model and cannot be 
attributed to the influence of European legislation. 

Finally, the expected long term impacts of REETS on cross-border interoperability have not 
realised  yet.  However,  the  recently  observed  expansion  of  EETS  providers  into  new  toll 

63  Directive  1999/62/EC  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  17  June  1999  on  the  charging  of  heavy  goods 
vehicles  for  the  use  of  certain  infrastructures,  (OJ  L  187,  20.7.1999,  p.  42),  as  amended  by  Directive  2006/22/EC  and 
Directive 2011/76/EU. 
64 EasyGo initially started as an interoperability agreement between toll chargers, but later evolved and today it is possible for 
third party toll service providers to operate in all involved toll domains.  

32 

 
                                                 
domains in the REETS region could certainly be partly attributed to the influence of the EETS 
legislation.  

(3) 

Procedural interoperability 

There  are  some  achievements  in  terms  of  procedural  interoperability  (or  at  least 
approximation  of  practices)  at  EU  level  which  can  be  attributed  to  the  EU  legislation,  in 
particular  the  relatively  harmonised  classification  of  vehicles.  However,  as  discussed  under 
Evaluation Question 6 (cf. section 6.1.6), most of the merit for the current system where toll 
classes  generally  follow  some  common  rules  in  all  toll  domains  could  be  attributed  the 
'Eurovignette' Directive. The latter suggests the variation of tolls by the  damage done to the 
infrastructure  (the  proxy  most  often  used  is  the  number  of  axles,  as  heavier  vehicles  which 
damage  roads  most  tend  to  have  more  axles),65  and  the  EURO  environmental  class  of  the 
vehicle. 

Other aspects of procedural interoperability, as described in Evaluation Question 1 (cf. section 
6.1.1),  have  hardly  progressed.  This  can  be  attributed  to  the  insufficient  level  of 
standardisation provided by the EETS legislation. 

(4) 

Contractual interoperability 

As  explained  in  section  6.1.1,  fuel  card  issuers  and  similar  intermediaries  help  haulage 
companies  deal  with  the  numerous  toll  chargers  on  the  roads  on  which  they  travel.  These 
services have nevertheless developed independently of the EU legislation. 

6.1.8.  Question  8:  Has  the  legal  framework  led  to  any  unintended  effect 

(negative or positive)? 

There were two main unintended effects of the legislation. The first one is linked to Art. 2.1 
of  the  EETS  Directive,  which  restricts  the  list  of  technologies  allowed  for  use  in  electronic 
tolling in the EU and therefore excludes from the market a technical solution very widely used 
elsewhere in the world, i.e. passive RFID tags. Therefore, the deployment of a cheap potential 
alternative  for  free  flow  tolling  of  cars  and  other  light  vehicles  has  been  hindered.  Box  1 
contains more information on the passive RFID technology and its use worldwide 

65 The Belgian HGV toll is an exception to this rule, as it varies the toll according to the maximum admissible laden weight, 
rather than the number of axles. 

33 

 
                                                 
Box 1: Passive RFID technology 

Passive RFID tags are used for tolling in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, 
Chile,  Columbia,  Costa  Rica,  the  Dominican  Republic,  Turkey,  India,  Vietnam, 
Thailand, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, South Korea and other countries). 
In this technology the OBUs (minuscule antennas integrated into stickers glued to the 
windshield) are not able to communicate information by themselves, but they merely 
reflect  a  signal  when  interrogated  by  the  roadside  equipment.  This  makes  them  less 
suitable  for  complex  tolling  systems,  such  HGV  tolling  or  closed  motorway  tolling 
systems.  However,  passive  RFID  tags  are  potentially  suitable  for  use  in  schemes 
where all the information which needs to be transmitted is the presence of the vehicle, 
e.g. cordon pricing, open tolling systems or even, under certain conditions, free flow 
tolling  systems  for  cars.  The  greatest  advantage  of  these  tags  is  their  price  –  ca.  1 
EUR, instead of 8-15 EUR per DSRC OBU – while the cost of the necessary roadside 
equipment is comparable to the DSRC environment. 

The second unintended consequence of the legislation is that, by imposing heavy obligations 
on EETS providers (cf. notably the answer to evaluation question 6 – section 6.1.6), it created 
for them considerable obstacles for entering the market. The most problematic provisions are: 

  Article 3 of the Decision which lists the requirements which a company must meet before 

it can be registered as EETS provider; 

  Article  4.1  which  obliges  EETS  providers  to  cover  with  their  services  all  electronic  toll 

domains in the EU within 24 months; 

  Point  1  of  Annex  I  to  the  Decision,  which  allows  toll  charger  to  ask  bank  guarantees  or 
equivalent  financial  instrument  up  to  a  level  equivalent  to  "the  average  monthly  toll 
transaction amount paid by the EETS provider for this toll domain"; 

  The  lack  of  effective  provisions  which  would  prevent  the  discrimination  of  EETS 
providers  wanting  to  enter  a  new  toll  domain.  Art.  5.3  of  the  EETS  Decision,  which 
provides that "toll chargers shall accept on a non-discriminatory basis any EETS provider 
requesting to provide EETS on the EETS domain(s) under the toll charger's responsibility" 
proved  not  explicit  enough,  as  it  has  often  been  interpreted  as  forbidding  discrimination 
between EETS providers, rather than against EETS providers. 

6.2.  Efficiency 

6.2.1.  Question 9: What are the current costs (including opportunity costs of not 
using another suitable technology) and benefits of the approach limiting 
to  three  the  number  of  technologies  allowed  to  be  used  for  electronic 
tolling?  What  will  be  their  possible  level  in  the  short-to-medium  term 
future? Are the answers different for different types of vehicles (heavy vs. 
light vehicles)? 

6.2.1.1.Costs 

As discussed under Evaluation Question 8 (cf. section 6.1.8), Art. 2.1 of the EETS Directive 
does not authorise electronic tolling systems using passive RFID. This technology cannot be 

34 

 
 
used in situations where the OBU must register and autonomously communicate data, such as 
the  closed  tolling  systems  (systems  where  a  barrier  is  installed  at  each  entry  and  exit  point 
from the motorway) present on many concession motorways across the EU. In principle, the 
systems could be rearranged so that the tolling system itself registers the point of entry and 
then compares it to the point of exist. However, this would require considerable investments 
and  a  complete  re-organisation  of  the  back-offices.  RFID  could  therefore  not  easily  be 
deployed in many existing closed tolling systems. 

RFID tags are much cheaper than DSRC OBUs (1-1.20 EUR instead of 8-15 EUR for DSRC). 
There  are  around  25  million  OBUs  installed  in  passenger  cars  today.66  The  value  of  these 
OBUs is of is of 200-375 million EUR, and because of the lifetime of a battery, they must be 
renewed every 5 years (which is not the case for RFID tags, which by definition do not have a 
battery).  In  an  RFID  environment,  equipping  the  same  number  of  vehicles  would  cost  only 
25-30  million  EUR.  The  potential  savings  therefore  amount  to  some  170-250  million  EUR 
every five years. It should be noted however that the operational costs of RFID passive tags 
can be 10 to 20% higher than in the case of a DSRC-based system (due to increased costs of 
enforcement).67  RFID  tags  are  less  suitable  for  use  in  the  HGV  tolling  systems  in  the  EU, 
because they cannot handle the complex data exchange requirements. 

There are also other technologies excluded from Article 2.1 of the EETS Directive, however 
their  exclusion  in  the  European  tolling  context  do  not  present  any  significant  costs.  In 
particular: 

 

Infrared  DSRC  has  similar  level  of  performance  and  costs to  microwave  DSRC.  Its 
exclusion  from  the  list  of  allowed  technologies  therefore  is  not  linked  to  any 
significant opportunity costs. 

  The tachograph-based OBUs are relatively cheap, but do not allow for differentiation 
between  tolled  and  non-tolled  roads  (each  kilometre  is  counted,  independently  on 
where it is driven). Moreover, the system is exposed to fraud, as the signal from the 
odometer  is  quite  easy  to  tamper.  In  order  to  prevent  this,  the  signal  from  the 
odometer  must  be  checked  against  another source,  e.g.  GNSS.  This  however  makes 
the  device  expensive,  as  it  is  the  case  in  Switzerland,  where  the  OBU  costs  around 
350  EUR.  Overall,  therefore,  tachograph/odometer-based  tolling  schemes  are  not 
particularly adapted to the EU context. 

  With exception to  some  pilot  operations cell  phones  have  never been  used  so far in 
real  operations  of  toll  collections.  Under  this  option,  the  position  of  the  vehicle  is 
established by triangulation of signals received by the phone from different GSM base 
station.  Availability  of  signal  is  a  critical  element,  which  makes  it  inappropriate  for 
less populated areas with insufficient coverage. In the future however, when universal 
coverage of the EU territory is attained, cell phone might also become an alternative 
tool for tolling, but it is difficult to estimate when/if it will happen. 

66 Own calculation based on statistics of the European Association of tolled motorways, bridges and tunnels concessionaires 

(ASECAP). 

67 4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 17. 

35 

 
 
 
                                                 
6.2.1.2. Benefits 

The  main  benefit  of  limiting  to  three  the  number  of  technologies  allowed  to  be  used  for 
electronic tolling is the reduction in the complexity of on-board equipment. Today, an OBU 
with the three technologies costs 90-150 EUR.68 The Swiss OBU, which in addition to these 
technologies also has a link to the odometer, costs 350 EUR a piece. Adding infrared DSRC 
to  the  equipment  would  cost  another  8-15  EUR.  In  addition,  such  OBUs  incorporating  all 
different  technologies  would  need  to  be  updated  all  the  time,  which  would  make  the 
achievement of technical interoperability much more difficult than it is even today. 

The main benefit is therefore a reduction in the price of EETS-compatible OBUs (i.e. OBUs 
which can operate in all toll domains in the EU). This benefit can be estimated at some 200-
260 EUR per piece of equipment,69 and some 1.2–1.56 billion for all lorries engaged in cross-
border transport in the EU.70 

6.2.1.3. Comparison costs-benefits 

In monetary terms, and assuming the same rate of replacement for EETS-compatible OBUs as 
for DSRC units, the net benefits of limiting to three the number of technologies allowed to be 
used  in  electronic  tolling,  compared  to  a  situation  where  all  technologies  were  allowed, 
amounts to 950-1,360 million EUR every 5 years.  

However, compared to a situation where only one technology (passive RFID) is added to the 
list,  the  current  imitation  could  actually  be  seen  as  bringing  net  losses  amounting  to  some 
170-250  million  EUR  every  five  years.  This  estimate  is  however  the  result  of  very  basic 
calculations, which does not take into account all characteristics of RFID as a technology and 
its  wide-scale  deployment  in  an  EU-context.  Its  possible  inclusion  in  the  list  of  authorised 
technologies would require a much deeper analysis in the framework of an impact assessment.  

6.2.2.  Question 10: Are the costs of the approach involving third party providers 
(EETS  provider)  adopted  in  the  Decision  lower  than  the  benefits 
associated  with  the  EU  wide  interoperability  of  the  toll?  Would  the 
relation  between  the  costs  and  benefits  be  better  had  an  alternative 
approach  been  chosen  (e.g.  deployment  of  EETS  through  agreement 
between toll chargers, or as a public service obligation, etc.)? 

Given the actual state of deployment of the EETS system (of the six registered EETS provider 
only  two  of  them71  providing  services  in  4-5  Member  States),  currently  it  is  impossible  to 
assess the actual level of costs and benefits. Therefore, this evaluation question will discuss 
the  potential  costs  and  benefits  of  the  approach  given  the  current  state  of  deployment  and 
expected market developments.  

68 4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op.cit. note 17. 
69 Difference between the price of today's EETS-compatible OBUs and of the Swiss OBU. 
70  Base  on  the  assumption  that  there  are  6  million  lorries  engaged  in  cross-border  transport  in  the  EU,  source:  Impact 
Assessment accompanying the proposal for a revision of Council Directive 96/53/EC of 25 July 1996 laying down for certain 
road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorized dimensions in national and international traffic and 
the maximum authorized weights in international traffic. 
71 Axxès and Telepass. 

36 

 
                                                 
6.2.2.1. Costs 

The  introduction  of  a third  party (EETS  provider)  in  the  toll  collection  chain  means  for  the 
toll charger – from a technical perspective – that he needs to create in his system an adequate 
interface for exchange of data with this new partner. When several EETS providers ask access 
to  a  given  scheme,  creating  and  managing  a  separate  interface  for  each  of  them  can  be 
burdensome  and  costly,  unless  a  sufficiently  open  interface  can  service  all  of  them.  This 
solution was chosen by the operator of the Austrian HGV toll domain ASFINAG, who want 
to communicate with EETS providers through the existing 'EasyGo' interface.72 

For  EETS  providers,  the  main  cost  element  relates  to  the  need  to  obtain  technical 
accreditation (and re-accreditation after any change to the system) of their OBUs and systems 
to  all  EETS  domains.  An  expert  commissioned  on  the  margins  of  this  evaluation  assessed 
these cost at 14.2 million for all toll domains.73 

For  toll  chargers,  outsourcing  contacts  with  the  clients  to  the  EETS  providers  can  make 
enforcement and fining more difficult, as the direct link to the client is lost. This problem can 
be  mitigated  if  good  and  close  co-operation  is  established  between  the  toll  charger  and  the 
EETS provider in the field of enforcement. 

6.2.2.2. Benefits 

The main benefits of delegating toll collection to the EETS provider are obviously savings on 
equipment.  This  is  particularly  true  for  GNSS-based  schemes,  where  OBUs  typically  cost 
more  than  100  euros  a  piece.  Furthermore,  many  toll  chargers  (ASFA  –  the  association  of 
French motorway concessionaires, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal) pointed in their answers to 
the targeted consultation to the fact that specialised third parties such as EETS providers have 
the  necessary  expertise  to  collect  tolls  in  a  more  efficient  manner  than  the  toll  chargers 
themselves.  In  particular,  their  international  presence  and  activity  base  makes  it  easier  for 
them  to  interface  with  clients  established  across  the  EU.  By  delegating  to  EETS  providers 
relations with the clients, toll chargers can focus on their main field of specialisation, i.e. road 
management. None of the toll chargers who answered the targeted consultation contested that 
the  guarantee  of  toll  payment  offered  by  the  EETS  providers  is  a  valuable  service  which 
should be remunerated. 

Another benefit of EETS, mentioned by Germany in its answer to the targeted consultation, is 
that  it  makes  toll  chargers  less  dependent  on  the  single  service  provider.  Hence,  their 
bargaining  power  and  flexibility  in  the  framework  of  long  term  contracts  with  system 
operators increase. Finally, with EETS providers operating on the market, the deployment of 
new  electronic  schemes  becomes  much  easier,  as  the  toll  charger  can  benefit  from  a  pre-
existing  large  number  of  registered  users  and  vehicles  equipped  with  OBUs.74  Still,  unless 
EETS providers are legally  obliged to  accept all users, the toll charger will need to provide 
on-board units and services to the 'bad clients'.75 

72 Contribution of ASFINAG to the targeted consultation. 
73 4icom, op.cit. note 15. 
74 Cf. Italian contribution to the targeted consultation. 
75  E.g.  in  the  Ecotaxe  system,  independent  service  providers  were  expected  to  service  600,000  registered  users,  while 
Ecomouv' – the operator of the system on behalf of the French State – would have delivered 200,000 OBUs to address the 
needs or occasional users not registered with other companies (cf. 4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, op. cit. footnote 17). 

37 

 
                                                 
In  summary,  the  benefits  of  the  approach  to  interoperability  which  involves  third  party 
providers (EETS providers) seem to considerably outweigh the costs. Actually, the fact that 
third party providers offer their services on commercial terms since many years in France (in 
the  framework  of  TIS-PL76),  Spain  (VIA-T)  or  Ireland  proves  that  the  approach  is 
commercially  viable.  The  interest  of  six  service  providers  in  entering  the  EETS  business 
proves that it can also be potentially viable on a European scale. 

It  is  useful  to  compare  the  interoperability  model  which  involves  EETS  providers  with  one 
based  exclusively  on  agreements  between  toll  chargers.  This  alternative  model  has  notably 
been successfully implemented in the telecoms sector, to allow world-wide roaming. This was 
mainly possible thanks to the existence of very precise standards (GSM), to which all market 
players adhere. Furthermore, roaming is – unlike interoperability of electronic tolls – a vital 
necessity  for  mobile  telecommunications,  and  demand  for  interoperable  services  is  huge. 
Neither  is  true  for  electronic  tolling,  where  systems  can  work  in  isolation,  and  demand  for 
interoperability  is  restricted  to  the  million-or-so  lorries  engaged  on  a  regular  basis  in  cross-
border transport.  

In the field of electronic tolling, the cost of passing bilateral agreements between each of the 
142  toll  chargers  (to  achieve  EU-wide  interoperability)  would  therefore  be  disproportionate 
(in  the  worst  case  scenario,  the  cost  of  certification  of  equipment  of  each  toll  charger  for 
to 
interoperability 
(141+140+139+138+137+136+…)*100,000  =  1,001,100,000  EUR)  compared 
the 
significant,  yet  limited  benefits.    However,  the  bilateral  approach  has  proven  useful  in 
regional  interoperability  projects  addressing  the  needs  of  specific,  local  users:  motorway 
concessionaires have passed such agreements to allow seamless crossing of borders by people 
living in neighbouring regions of France and Spain, or Spain and Portugal.77 

domains 

amount 

would 

other 

with 

toll 

all 

to 

6.3.  Relevance: 

6.3.1.  Question 11: To what extent is interoperability of electronic tolls needed 
by the users? Is the answer different for different types of road users (in 
particular  heavy  goods  vehicles  vs.  other  users)?  Is  it  likely  to  change 
over time? 

As discussed in Section 5.2.1 electronic tolls on motorways and in cities for private cars exist 
in a number of EU Member States. However, for most of the private users, when occasionally 
travelling abroad, the hassle of paying manually seems to be at an acceptable level. In their 
answers  to  the  targeted  consultation,  organisations  representing  light  vehicle  users 
(Automobile Clubs) have clearly indicated that cross-border interoperability of electronic tolls 
is not an issue for them.78 This results from the fact that: (1) electronic tolling requiring the 
presence  of  an  on-board  unit  is  still  not  frequent  for  light  vehicles,  and  manual  payment  is 
offered as an alternative in most of the cases and (2) cars do not go abroad on a regular basis 
(typically  once-twice  a  year  for  holidays)  and  even  then  do  not  cross  many  borders.  In 
addition,  these  representatives  of  the  industry  fear  that  possible  costs  of  interoperability  are 
reflected  as  an  increase  in  the  level  of  tolls.  ASFINAG  –  single  toll  charger  and  main  toll 
service provider in Austria, gave a somewhat less categorical answer, indicating that a market 

76 TIS-PL is the French interoperability system for heavy goods vehicles, allowing the use of all conceded motorways with 
one OBU and a single contract. 
77 Cf. the answers of ASFA and of Portugal to the targeted consultation. 
78 Answers of ADAC and ÖAMTC to the targeted consultation. 

38 

 
                                                 
could  exist  for  regional  cross  border  interoperability  between  two  countries  with  significant 
cross  border  movement.79  Yet  ASFINAG  confirmed  that  users  of  light  vehicles  would  not 
accept  to  pay  the  costs  of  this  interoperability,  nor  would  they  accept  any  interoperability 
which does not guarantee fully seamless payment of tolls in the other country. 

The position of heavy duty vehicle operators is different. As discussed in Evaluation Question 
5 (Section 6.1.5) the hassle for tolled road users of having numerous OBUs is high and costs 
are significant. Moreover, as trucks go abroad on a regular basis, the hassle of using manual 
payment for HGV in countries where both paying methods are available (i.e. Croatia, France, 
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia and Spain) is relatively higher than for occasional private car 
or van users. In their answer to the targeted consultation, the hauliers' organisation IRU also 
indicates that almost all EU trucks engaged in cross-border transport would be equipped with 
at least three to four OBUs. Between one third and half of the road haulage market would be a 
potential user of the EETS.80 This last figure however seems exaggerated, as it is commonly 
assumed  that  only  about  one  million  lorries  out  of  a  European  population  of  6  million  are 
engaged in cross-border transport.81 

Intermediaries such as fuel card issuers already facilitate toll payment in the EU by allowing 
road freight transport operators to have to deal with only one invoice. However, according to 
IRU,  none  of  these  intermediaries cover  all electronic  toll  domains  across  the  EU.  Whereas 
they constitute a partial solution to the problem of having to deal with numerous counterparts, 
it doesn't solve the issue of road users being obliged to handle many OBUs and contracts to 
seamlessly  cross  borders  in  the  EU.  Road  freight  transport  operators  still  have  to  carry  as 
many OBUs and to sign as many contracts as there are toll chargers, with the attached burden, 
administrative  fees  and  maintenance  costs.82  This  is  still  reported  as  a  big  problem  by  the 
hauliers'  association  (as  already  indicated  in  section  6.1.5),  who  therefore  call  for 
interoperability of electronic tolls at the three levels defined by the EETS legislation (cf. also 
answer to question 12 in section 6.3.2). 

In  conclusion,  it  appears  clearly  from  expert  views  that  cross-border  interoperability  of 
electronic tolls is much more needed by heavy duty vehicles than by cars. This was somehow 
indirectly contradicted by the results of the open public consultation (to which mainly a non-
expert audience participated), where the majority of respondents (45, or 62%) agreed that the 
EU should continue regulating interoperability between electronic tolls applied to passenger 
cars.  Three  times  the  amount  were  in  favour  of  this  compared  to  those  who  believed  this 
matter should be left to Member States. Road users (both professional and private) were most 
in  favour,  while  public  authorities  were  more  split  (3  in  favour,  three  against).  This  result 
might reflect the fact that the situation might change in the medium-to-long term as barrier-
free tolling schemes start to be deployed on a wider scale for light vehicles. As regards heavy 
duty vehicles, their need of interoperability will become more acute in the near future as the 
deployment of new schemes is being considered in several countries (c.f. tendering process in 
Bulgaria for a network-wide tolling scheme, ongoing analyses in Sweden, etc.). 

79 Answer of ASFINAG to the targeted consultation. 
80 Answer of the International Road Union (IRU) to the targeted consultation. 
81  Impact Assessment accompanying the proposal for a revision of Council Directive 96/53/EC of 25 July 1996 laying down 
for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorized dimensions in national and international 
traffic and the maximum authorized weights in international traffic. 
82 Answer of the International Road Union (IRU) to the targeted consultation. 

39 

 
                                                 
6.3.2.  Question 12: To what extent the objective of having interoperability at all 
three  different  levels  (technical,  contractual  and  procedural)  is  equally 
needed  by 
levels  of 
interoperability be less relevant? 

the  road  users?  Would  any  of 

three 

the 

The lack of technical interoperability, i.e. the need to equip vehicles with a separate on-board 
unit  for  each  electronic  tolling  scheme,  is  the  most  visible  aspect  of  the  issue.  It  means  the 
following problems for the hauliers: 

  Financial costs of acquiring, installing and removing on-board units from the vehicle; 
this  can  be  particularly  problematic  where  the  vehicle  travels  across  many  Member 
States, and is therefore to be equipped with many OBUs. Similarly, it is an issue for 
companies in which the fleet renewal rate is high (if trucks are constantly engaged in 
long distance international transport, they can be renewed as often as every three years 
to optimise their performance). 
Installing  and  removing  on-board  units  is  also  linked  to  a  loss  of  time,  especially, 
when the OBU must be installed in a specialised workshop. 

 

  The driver needs to monitor that all his OBUs are working to avoid fines. 
  There can be interferences between different OBUs. 

Most aspects of the lack  of procedural interoperability are not  directly relevant  for the road 
users, since they influence the relations between the toll chargers and toll service providers. 
However, the lack of consistency in the way vehicles are divided into toll classes is a problem 
for  operators  wishing  to  optimise  their  fleet  composition  according  to  the  deployed  price 
signals.  As  an  example,  it  is  cheaper  –  from  a  tolling  point  of  view  –  to  transport  a  given 
shipment with two 7.5 tonne trucks in Germany (since they are not subject to the toll), while 
in Austria it will make more sense to pack it in a 12 tonne truck. 

Finally, the lack of contractual interoperability can cause significant direct compliance costs, 
especially  to  smaller  hauliers'  companies  who  do  not  have  specialised  services  dealing  with 
contractual  issues.  However,  the  market  already  has  –  at  least  partially  –  addressed  this 
problem,  with  fuel  cards  providers  acting  as  intermediaries  between  road  users  and  toll 
chargers.  The  high  cost  of  such  services  –  between  1  and  4%  of  the  toll  due  –  remains 
however a problem. 

To  conclude,  for  users  technical  and  contractual  interoperability  are  seemingly  more 
important,  while  procedural  interoperability  is  a  secondary  objective.  However,  the  latter  is 
very important for the toll service providers, who are in the end responsible for deploying the 
EETS. 

6.3.3.  Question  13:  To  what  extent  does  the  level  of  the  costs  (and  hassle) 
caused  by  the  lack  of  interoperability  justify  policy  intervention  to 
facilitate interoperability? How has the gradual increase in the length of 
tolled networks and number of electronic toll systems in the EU affected 
the  relevance  of  the  objectives  of  reducing  costs  for  users  and  for  toll 
chargers? 

When answering this question, one has to consider costs and hassle for two main categories of 
stakeholders: the users (in particular heavy duty vehicles) and the toll chargers. 

40 

 
For  users  –  as  explained  in  section  6.1.5  –  costs  can  be  quite  significant  for  heavy  good 
vehicles. The gradual extension of the tolled road network in the EU in the last years and the 
use  of  more  sophisticated  tolling  technologies  (GNSS  on-board  units)  contributed  to  an 
increase in the magnitude of initially identified problem. 

For light vehicles, the costs and hassle caused by the lack of interoperability seem small83 and 
are likely to remain at the same level in the short-to-medium future. Therefore, the coverage 
of  light  vehicles  by  the  EETS  legislation  is  less  strongly  justified  by  the  level  of  costs  and 
hassle experienced by this category of users, although other reasons (coherence of the internal 
market,  preparing  for  future  wider  extension  of  free  flow  tolling  systems  for  light  vehicles) 
are also to be considered. 

Regarding toll chargers, the costs due to the lack of interoperability are even larger than for 
the  previous  stakeholders'  group.  However,  the  objective  of  minimising  these  costs  for  this 
category of stakeholders is less relevant. The vast majority (in terms of network coverage) of 
electronic  tolling  schemes  put  in  place  since  2004  have  been  deployed  by  the  States 
themselves, rather than by private concessionaires. For public authorities, the integrity of toll 
collection (i.e. reducing the level of unpaid tolls to the minimum) is often more important than 
the cost of achieving this goal. Therefore, they tend to develop proprietary systems which sure 
guarantee  a  better  control  of  the  overall  toll  collection  process,  but  cost  much  more  in 
investment  and  operational  terms.  The  same  is  true  for  the  systems  possibly  coming  up  in 
foreseeable future, namely the ones considered in Sweden and Bulgaria. 

This explains why – as presented in section 6.1.5 – new electronic tolling schemes still cost 
on  average  more  than  600  million  EUR  to  deploy,  and  are  characterised  by  operating  costs 
which can reach 10-20% of the tolls collected.  

6.3.4.  Question  14:  To  what  extent  the  coverage  of  the  framework  in  terms  of 
users and geographical scope is adequate to the needs of the sector?  For 
instance, is interoperability needed for some or all road user types? Is it 
relevant to cover all toll domains in the EU? Could it cover less, e.g. main 
transit  countries?  Or  should  it  cover  more,  e.g.  Switzerland,  EEA, 
Western Balkans, Turkey, Community of Independent States, etc.?  

As discussed under Evaluation Question 1 (section 6.3.1), from the users’ perspective, cross-
border  interoperability  is  much  more  needed  by  heavy-duty  vehicles  than  by  cars  or  vans. 
However,  some  toll  chargers  have  a  different  opinion.  In  its  answer  to  the  targeted 
consultation, Ireland indicated that EETS for light vehicles could convince more of the users 
to opt for electronic tolling, thus helping to reduce the costs of toll collection. The same could 
be true in other countries where manual collection exists as an alternative to electronic tolling, 
such as notably France, Italy, Spain and others. 

There is disagreement between the stakeholders on the geographical coverage of EETS. IRU 
for instance suggests that EETS should be extended to EFTA and all neighbouring countries, 
which have introduced electronic fee collection.84 Toll chargers and toll service providers tend 
to agree with IRU that interoperability should not be restricted to the EU, but they believe that 
this  extension  should  be  justified  by  significant  transport  flows.  Kapsch  (one  of  the  main 
technology  provider  and  operator  of  electronic  tolling  schemes  in  the  EU)  also  agreed  that 

83 Cf. Answers of ADAC and ÖAMTC to the targeted consultation. 
84 This would cover Switzerland, the Western Balkans, Turkey, Belarus, Russia and Morocco. 

41 

 
                                                 
EETS  providers  should  be  allowed  to  enter  all  the  markets  where  there  is  demand  for 
interoperable services. These views are challenged by ASECAP, who are one of the leaders of 
the REETS project. According to their contribution to this evaluation, the need for the EETS 
system  would  mainly  exist today  for  centrally located  European  States,  which  have  a  lot  of 
cross-border traffic.85 The assessment of figures provided by ASFINAG (operator of Austrian 
motorways  and  of  the  Austrian  road  tolling  scheme)  does  not  support  this  conclusion 
however.  According  to  these  data,  there  is  significant  HGV  traffic  on  Austrian  territory 
coming  from  such  peripheral  Member  States  as  Lithuania  (more  than  12,000  toll 
transactions),  Portugal  or  Greece.86  Ireland  also  shows  significant  volumes  of  foreign 
registered  vehicles  on  its  territory  (24%),  including  6.7%  from  mainland  Europe.87  The 
optimal scope of EETS will depend, on the one hand, on the costs of including each particular 
toll  domain  in  the  service  (these  costs  include,  notably:  the  certification  of  the  OBU  as 
suitable for use in the toll domain – 100,000 EUR on average; developing the necessary back-
office interfaces between the toll charger and the EETS provider; negotiating and maintaining 
concrete contractual agreements) and, on the other hand, the potential benefits for users and 
for the toll charger. Obviously, the more cross-border traffic there is in a given toll domain, 
the  greater  the  chance  that  it  should  be  covered  by  the  European  Electronic  Toll  Service. 
Geographical location (central vs. peripheral) should not be seen as the sole factor to take into 
account, as some peripheral countries are strongly integrated in the European transport chains 
and business.  The results  of the open public consultation  confirm this  view: 37 respondents 
(51%)  felt  that  the  European  Union  should  leave  the  EETS  providers  to  decide  which  toll 
domains  they  want  to  cover  by  their  services,  while  24%  only  believed  the  EU  should 
maintain the obligation for EETS providers to cover all toll domains in the EU. A very large 
proportion  (c.80%)  of  respondents  representing  toll  chargers  or  service  providers  were  in 
favour  of  allowing  EETS  providers  to  decide  which  domains  they  should  cover.  However, 
only c. 30-35% of respondents from the other interest groups agreed that the regulation should 
be  relaxed;  between  50-67%  of  public  authority  and  ‘other’  representing  respondents 
suggested  an  ‘other  solution’,  while  between  c.  45-55%  of  respondents  representing  private 
use and many/other transport modes suggest that the current obligation should be maintained. 

 Therefore,  the  geographic  coverage  is  at  least  partially  relevant  and  might  possibly  be 
extended where demand justifies it. As regards the types of users, while covering passenger 
cars may seem redundant (partly because a number of Member States apply vignettes rather 
than  distance-based  tolls),  seasonal  congestion  could  be  reduced  had  the  EETS  been 
operational  and  had  travellers  been  equipped  with  (interoperable)  OBUs  and  therefore  not 
been obliged to stop at toll booths. 

6.3.1.  Question  15:  Is  there  still  a  need  to  ensure  that  the  technologies  and 
components provided for in national electronic fee collection systems be 
combined with other vehicle components? 

The  assessment  shows  that  the  objective  of  having  OBUs  combined  with  other  vehicle 
components is partially irrelevant in light of the recent legal and technical developments. In 
its  answer  to  the  targeted  consultation,  Kapsch  (one  of  the  main  technology  provider  and 
operator of electronic tolling schemes in the EU) pointed to two major issues which must be 
taken into account in the assessment: a) the primary roles of devices serving a specific legal 

85 ASECAP, Tolling industry – key parameters – a phased approach, contribution sent to the Commission at the occasion of 
the targeted consultation. 
86 Contribution of ASFINAG to the targeted consultation. 
87 Answer of Ireland to the targeted consultation. 

42 

 
                                                 
purpose  (digital  tachograph,  e-call)  shall  not  be  jeopardised;  and  b)  requirements  on 
protection  of  personal  data,  which  don’t  allow  using  the  data  on  the  location  of  the  vehicle 
collected for enforcement (tachograph) or safety (e-call) reasons for other purposes, such as 
tolling.  In  general,  it  is  technically  feasible  to  share  GNSS  and  DSRC  interfaces  of  these 
devices when they are external to the latter.  If, however, these interfaces are embedded in the 
tachograph  or  in  e-call,  their  use  can  potentially  put  at  danger  the  personal  data  protection, 
and  also  expose  the  tachograph  to  the  risk  of  tampering.  Integration  of  OBUs  with 
commercial  tracking  and  tracing  devices  is  possible  as  shown  by  the  successful  example  of 
Hungarian HGV toll. However, such devices do not guarantee the integrity of toll declaration 
messages  (e.g.  they  can  be  turned  off  at  any  moment),  and  their  use  therefore  requires 
enhanced enforcement efforts to prevent fraud and toll evasion. 

In conclusion, the need of ensuring better use of GNSS and DSRC interfaces of the devices 
installed on board of the vehicle to achieve economies of scale remains relevant to the sector. 
However such integration should be considered only where it does not pose any threat to the 
functioning  of  the  legally  imposed  devices.  When  it  comes  to  integration  with  commercial 
devices  such  as  tracking  and  tracing  boxes,  smart  phones  or  satellite  navigation  tools,  the 
appropriateness  of  these  devices  for  the  specific  application  of  toll  collection  should  be 
analysed and potential gains should be carefully weighed against the drawbacks. 

6.4.  European added value 

6.4.1.  Question 16: What was the EU added value of the EETS legislation? 

The EETS legislation was expected to put an end to the proliferation of mutually incompatible 
national electronic tolling systems, and thus  contribute to  reducing the costs of e-tolling  for 
users and for toll chargers. Given their divergent objectives, Member States were not expected 
to have incentives to co-ordinate between themselves the development and operation of their 
systems.  The  European  legal  framework  was  seen  as  an  instrument  to  incentivise  the 
coordination of individual schemes and to ensure the further development of common market 
for e-tolling market. 

The  potential  of  the  EU  added  value  has  largely  not  been  reached  because  of  the  low 
effectiveness of the EETS legislation, as explained in the answers to evaluation questions 1- 8 
(sections 6.1.1-6.1.8). It should be noted however that the legislation contributed to a limited 
technological  and  procedural  convergence  of  individual  e-tolling  schemes  and  to  a  certain 
level  of  cross-border  co-operation  (e.g.  REETS  projects).    This  in  its  turn  resulted  in  the 
limited deployment of cross-border interoperability in different parts of the EU, e.g. between 
France, Spain and Portugal, or between Austria and the Scandinavian countries. Overall, the 
EU added value of the EETS legislation was therefore low. 

6.5.  Coherence 

6.5.1.  Question  17:  To  what  extent  the  legal  framework  is  coherent  with  the 
goals  and  provisions  of  existing  and  upcoming  EU  legislation?  In 
particular, how does this initiative fit in the overall ITS legal framework? 

‘User pays’ and 'Polluter pays' principles 

Electronic  tolling  is  a  key  enabler  for  the  application  of  the  'user  pays'  and  'polluter  pays' 
principles, since it allows seamless collection of 'intelligent' tolls which take into account the 
individual infrastructure- and external costs related to the use of  each vehicle. By aiming to 

43 

 
make  electronic  tolling  cheaper  and  more  user-friendly,  the  EETS  legislation  supports  the 
Commission's  goals  to  apply  the  user  and  polluter  pays  principles  on  a  wider  scale.  These 
goals have been set in a series of Communications of the Commission, and more recently in 
the 2011 Transport White Paper.88 EETS is also instrumental for the success of the goals of 
the 'Eurovignette' Directive89 which establishes the framework conditions for charging heavy 
goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructure. 

Radio frequencies 

The use of the 5.8 GHz frequency band for microwave-based tolling is compatible with the 
Annex to Decision 2006/771/EC as amended,90 which restricts the use of the 5795-5805 MHz 
frequency band with transmitting power up to 2 W e.i.r.p.91 to road tolling applications.  

DSRC  tolling  in  the  5.8  GHz  frequency  band  is  however  under  risk  of  interferences  (i.e. 
mutual blurring of signals) coming from two sources. First, a neighbouring band (5.9 GHz) is 
designated  for  intelligent  transport  systems  (ITS)  applications:  the  5855-5875  MHz  band  is 
designated within the European Postal and Telecommunications Committee (CEPT) for non-
safety-related  ITS  applications,  while  the  5875-5905  MHz  band  is  reserved  under  the 
provisions of Commission Decision 2008/671/EC to safety-related ITS.  

The proximity of tolling and ITS bands has, for a long time, not caused any problem because 
development  of  ITS  applications  was  very  slow.  Today,  however,  co-operative  ITS  (C-ITS, 
i.e. data sharing between vehicles, and between vehicles and the infrastructure) are expected 
to  take  up  very  quickly,  with  the  support  of  the  European  Commission  and  main  vehicle 
manufacturers.  Many  of  the  expected  applications  are  safety  related,  and  some  are  human 
safety  critical  (such  as  collision  avoidance,  ramp  access,  grade  crossings,  platooning,  etc.). 
Signal interference between tolling and ITS can therefore not only cause revenue losses to toll 
chargers, but also put human life in danger. The organisations representing the two industries 
– ASECAP for the tolling sector and CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium for C-ITS – 
have  negotiated  inside  ETSI  to  find  a  solution  for  interference-free  co-existence  of  the  two 
kinds  of  applications,  but  the  testing  of  the  efficiency  of  the  solutions  proposed  are  not  yet 
finished.  Some  players  actually  suggest  a  migration  of  microwave-based  tolling  to  the  5.9 
GHz band, but this would require deep analysis and a very long transition period. 

The  other  threat  to  microwave-based  tolling  comes  from  the  fact  that  rapidly  expanding 
RLAN92  applications  require  an  extension  of  the  spectrum  they  can  use.  Mandated  by  the 
European  Commission,  CEPT  is  currently  evaluating  if  band  sharing  is  possible  between 
WiFi  and  existing  applications  amongst  others  in  the  5-6  GHz  band.  Tolling  is  particularly 
threatened by this expansion as – unlike the 5.9 GHz band for ITS applications – the 5.8 GHz 
band is attributed to tolling on a non-protected basis.  

88White  Paper,  Roadmap  to  a  Single  European  Transport  Area  –  Towards  a  competitive  and  resource  efficient  transport 
system, COM(2011) 144 final. 
89Directive 1999/62/EC, as amended by Directive 2006/38/EC and Directive 2011/76/EU. 
90Commission Decision of 9 November 2006 on harmonisation of the radio spectrum for use by short-range devices, OJ L 
312, 11.11.2006, p.66. 
91 Stands for "equivalent isotropically radiated power". 
92 Stands for 'Radio LAN', i.e. wireless internet. 

44 

 
                                                 
6.5.2.  Question 18: To what extent are the provisions of the Directive and of the 
Decision  coherent  and  consistent?  Are  there  any  incompatibilities  or 
contradictions between individual provisions? 

There are two main inconsistencies between the provisions of the Directive and the Decision. 
First,  in  its  Article  3  (4),  the  Directive  puts  the  responsibility  of  setting  up  the  EETS  on 
Member States insofar as "they shall ensure that operators and/or issuers offer the European 
electronic  toll  service  to  their  customers  in  accordance  with  [a  given]  timetable".  This 
theoretical responsibility is not further specified in the Decision. To the contrary, the Decision 
actually transfers the responsibility for the provision of the European Electronic Toll Service 
to EETS providers, while Member States merely have to ensure that "EETS [is] provided to 
EETS users as a single continuous service" (Art. 12 of the Decision). 

Secondly, the Annex to the Directive mentions a long list of items required for the definition 
and deployment of EETS, including notably detailed technical and procedural harmonisation 
on  the  basis  of  adequate  standards.  However,  the  Decision  does  not  constitute  an  adequate 
follow-up  to  the  provisions  of  the  Annex.  Most  notably,  it  specifies  only  one  standard  (for 
communication between the OBUs and roadside equipment in a DSRC environment), which 
falls  largely  short  of  what  would  be  necessary  for  harmonising  the  systems  in  the  EU 
according  to  the  needs  of  EETS.  This  has  hindered  the  achievement  of  interoperability  as 
explained in the answer to evaluation question 1 (cf. section 6.1.1). 

7.  CONCLUSIONS 

7.1.  Effectiveness 

The  legislation  failed  to  deliver  on  most  of  the  objectives:  costs  of  electronic  tolling  have 
hardly  decreased  for  toll  chargers  and  for  road  users,  an  EETS  has  not  been  set  up  (and 
interoperability  hardly  progressed)  and  OBUs  have  not  –  with  few  exceptions  –  been 
integrated with other devices. 

As a result, while six EETS providers have been registered so far, only one of them has made 
significant progress in terms of service coverage since registration. 

Interoperability of electronic tolls exists today mainly at national level, and in some countries 
it  is  established  on  the  EETS  model  (involving  a  third  party  toll  service  provider).  A  few, 
limited  cross-border  agreement  also  appeared  –  mostly  between  DSRC  systems,  where 
interoperability is  easier  to  achieve. The  regional  interoperability  project  REETS,  supported 
by  the  European  Commission,  and  its  follow-up  EETS  Facilitation  Platform  and  involving 
tolling  actors  from  seven  centrally  located  Member  States  and  from  Switzerland  have 
achieved significant progress, but also shown the limits of what they can achieve in terms of 
overcoming legal problems and the lack of commitment of crucial decision makers. 

Even  if  the  price  of  tolling  equipment  has  fallen  by  some  50%  since  2004,  this  has  not 
translated into a significant reduction of the cost of electronic tolling for toll chargers and road 
users. In particular, system setup and operation costs for toll chargers have remained at a same 
very high level over the evaluation period. Users have also not benefited from the fall in the 
price  of  equipment  because  toll  chargers  impose  high  margins  on  the  on-board  units  which 
they  put  at  the  users'  disposal.  The  overall  costs  and  burden  linked  to  the  toll  payment 
obligation have in fact increased, as many new schemes are now deployed in Member States, 
where electronic tolling did not exist previously.  

45 

 
One of the objectives of the EETS legislation was to make possible the integration of OBUs 
with other devices inside the vehicle using the same technologies (DSRC, satellite positioning 
and  mobile  communications).  To  date,  this  has  happened  in  Hungary,  where  commercial 
tracking and tracing devices are used for toll declaration instead of dedicated on-board units. 
Some  toll  service  providers,  such  as  Axxès,  ViaVerde  and  others  also  provide  value  added 
services  on  top  of  toll  collection  using  the  same  equipment.  In  France  and  Ireland  (and 
possibly  also  in  other  countries,  where  electronic  tolling  is  offered  to  users  of  concession 
motorways) it is also typically possible to pay for non-public parking using the same OBU as 
the one used for toll collection. 

A number of factors could be identified as contributing to this non-achievement of objectives:   

Interoperability  on  a  wider  scale  has  been  blocked  by  the  lack  of  commitment  and  –  in  the 
worst  case  scenario  –  resistance  of  some  Member  States  to  opening  their  markets  to  new 
entrants. However, contractual interoperability, i.e. the possibility to interface with only one 
counterpart  for  paying  tolls  across  the  EU,  has  developed  independently  from  the  EETS 
framework  as  a  commercial  offer  from,  mainly,  fleet  card  providers.  This  did  however  not 
allow reducing the number of on-board units which must be installed on-board of the vehicle 
or  the  number  of  contracts  to  be  signed  by  the  haulier.  Moreover,  certain  provisions  of  the 
Directive and  the  Decision  also  contributed  to  the  status  quo.  First  of  all,  the  two  pieces  of 
legislation  create  confusion  as  to  who  exactly  is  responsible  for  the  deployment  of 
interoperable  services.  Furthermore,  the  Decision  fails  to  mandate  a  sufficiently  detailed 
standardisation framework to support the needed harmonisation of electronic tolling systems 
in the EU. Third, the evaluation shows that the market rules defined in the Decision are biased 
to the detriment of the EETS providers. Finally, the lack of effective provisions allowing for a 
cross-border  enforcement  of  offenses  to  the  toll  obligation  reinforces  the  reluctance  of  toll 
chargers to give away even a part of the control over the toll collection process. 

It has to be admitted that the standardisation requirements provided for in the legislation have 
contributed to the reduction of the price of DSRC equipment. Nevertheless, the reduction of 
the costs of other devices does not result from the EU rules. The other aspects of the EETS 
legislation,  which  actually  help  interoperability,  are  the  restriction  in  the  number  of 
technologies which are allowed to be used in the EU for toll collection, and the creation of the 
role of EETS provider, responsible for offering interoperability on the market. 

7.2.  Efficiency 

The intervention has not attained its objectives in reducing costs to transport operators and toll 
chargers (see section 8.1). However, it should be admitted that the legislation has overall not 
led to any important opportunity costs for commercial operators, of restricting the number of 
technologies for electronic tolling in the EU. The only notable exception is the passive RFID 
technology, which could provide a cheap alternative to DSRC for tolling in specific contexts 
(light vehicles, urban tolling…). Indeed, other potential technologies used for e-tolling are not 
suitable  for  the  European  context  because  of  the  complexity  of  the  tolling  operations  for 
heavy duty vehicles which the technology needs to facilitate, or simply would not bring any 
added value compared to those technologies which are allowed by the EETS Directive. 

Finally, given the actual state of deployment of the EETS system (only a handful of countries 
in which even the most advanced EETS provider offers its services) currently it is impossible 
to assess the actual level of costs and benefits.  

46 

 
7.3.  Relevance 

The legislation is only partially relevant in terms of its scope, as the mandatory coverage by 
EETS  of  all  types  of  vehicles  and  all  toll  domains  in  Europe  is  considered  an  excessive 
requirement.  There  is  (under  present  circumstances)  no  strong  need  of  interoperable  tolling 
for users of light vehicles, as the frequency of cross-border trips for this group of drivers is 
normally  limited  (e.g.  during  the  holidays)  compared  to  the  HGVs.    In  specific  cases  (two 
bordering  regions),  interoperability  for  light  vehicles  can  be  achieved  through  local 
agreements between toll chargers. On the other hand, the need of cross-border interoperability 
of electronic tolls for heavy goods vehicles is confirmed by the stakeholders. Moreover, the 
need for EETS for HGVs will further increase with each new GNSS-based system deployed 
in Europe. 

As  regards  the  geographical  scope,  EETS  providers  should  offer  their  services  everywhere 
where significant demand exists. This could mean excluding some remotely located domains 
with little link to other parts of the EU, but could also mean including countries outside the 
EU and EEA. 

The objective of having three layers of interoperability – procedural, contractual and technical 
–  is  still  relevant  given  the  latest  technological  and  market  developments  translated  into  an 
important  increase  in  number  of  toll  domains  around  the  Europe.  All  three  layers  are  still 
equally important for the road usurers, toll chargers and providers. 

Finally, the objective of integrating OBUs with other devices is not fully relevant given the 
current  state  of  technologies.  Indeed,  a  better  use  of  GNSS  and  DSRC  interfaces  of  other 
devices  (such  as  the  digital  tachograph)  installed  on  board  of  the  vehicle  could  potentially 
help in reducing costs through economies of scale, but their integration with the OBUs is not 
always technically feasible as it may pose a threat to the functioning of the legally imposed 
devices or violate the rules on access to personal data. 

7.4.  European added value 

The  potential  level  of  EU-added  value  of  the  EETS  legislation  is  high,  as  it  is  shown  by 
experience  that  voluntary  co-operation  agreements  between  Member  States  would  not 
contribute to a substantial EETS coverage of the internal market.  

The existing legal framework also failed to fully reach its potential of EU-added value due to 
the  low  level  of  its  effectiveness.  It  should  be  admitted  however  that  the  legislation 
contributed  to  a  limited  technological  and  procedural  convergence  of  individual  e-tolling 
schemes  and  to  a  certain  level  of  cross-border  co-operation.  This  in  its  turn  resulted  in  a 
limited deployment of cross-border interoperability in different parts of the EU. 

7.5.  Coherence 

The objectives of the EETS legislation are fully coherent with the Commission's overarching 
goal of applying on a wider scale the 'user pays' and 'polluter pays' principles. 

Recently,  the  problem  of  interferences  between  DSRC-based  electronic  tolling  and  other 
applications (co-operative ITS and WiFi) started to gain in importance. The fact that the 5.8 
GHz  band  is  reserved  for  tolling  on  a  non-protected  basis  makes  the  schemes  using 
microwave communications vulnerable to possible expansions of the two mentioned type of 
applications (and potentially also other applications in the future).  

47 

 
Internal coherence of the EETS Directive and Decision is not fully preserved due to divergent 
requirements  in  two  legal  acts  on  the  (group  of)  actors  responsible  for  the  deployment  of 
EETS.  The  Directive  lays  the  Member  States  and  the  toll  chargers  being  responsible,  while 
the Decision clearly put the responsibility on EETS providers. 

48 

 
 
 
8.  ANNEXES 

8.1.  Annex 1: Glossary 

AETIS:  Association  of  electronic  toll  and  interoperable  service  (association  of 
(prospective) EETS providers) 

ANPR: Automatic number plate recognition  

ASECAP:  European  Association  of 
concessionaires 

tolled  motorways,  bridges  and 

tunnels 

ASFA: Association of French Motorway Companies 

CEN: Comité Européen de Normalisation (European Standardisation Committee): 

CESARE:  Common  Electronic  Fee  Collection  System  for  an  ASECAP  Road  Tolling 
European Service - project set up by ASECAP with the intention of specifying, designing, 
developing, promoting and implementing a common interoperable Electronic Fee Collection 
System (EFC) on European toll roads. 

DSRC: Dedicated short range communication - two-way short- to- medium-range wireless 
communications  capability 
in 
that  permits  very  high  data 
communications-based active safety applications. 

transmission  critical 

EasyGo: interoperability agreement between Norway, Sweden and Denmark. 

EasyGo+: interoperability agreement between Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Austria. 

EETS:  European  Electronic  Toll  Service  –  the  possibility  for  road  users  to  pay  all 
electronic road tolls in the EU with one single OBU, one contract and one invoice. The EETS 
is mandated by Directive 2004/52/EC and defined in Decision 2009/750/EC. 

E-call: EU initiative to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere in 
the European Union. In case of a crash, an e-Call-equipped car automatically calls the nearest 
emergency centre. E-call is mandatory equipment in all HGV and will become mandatory in 
cars as of April 2018. 

ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute 

GNSS:  Global  Navigation  Satellite  System:  satellite  system  that  is  used  to  pinpoint  the 
geographic location of a user's receiver anywhere in the world. 

GPRS: General packet radio service: packet oriented mobile data service on the 2G and 3G 
cellular  communication  system's  global  system  for  mobile  communications  (GSM).  By 
extension, the term GPRS will be used – unless specified otherwise – to design its successors 
under 3G, 4G and 5G. 

GSM  (Global  System for  Mobile Communications):  standard  developed  by  the  European 
Telecommunications  Standards  Institute  (ETSI)  to  describe  the  protocols  for  second-
generation  (2G)  digital  cellular  networks  used  by  mobile  phones.  By  extension,  the  terms 
GSM will be used – unless specified otherwise – to design its successors (3G, 4G and 5G) 

 
 
HDV:  Heavy  Duty  Vehicles;  the  term  covers  two  categories  of  vehicles:  heavy  goods 
vehicles (HGV), i.e. freight vehicles with a total permissible laden weight exceeding 3.5t, and 
buses/coaches, i.e. vehicles designed and used for the transport of more than nine passengers 
including the driver. 

HGV:  Heavy  Goods  Vehicle,  i.e.  freight  vehicles  with  a  total  permissible  laden  weight 
exceeding 3.5t. 

Interoperability: the capacity of different equipment and systems to work together. 

Interoperability  constituents:  physical  (e.g.  OBU,  roadside  equipment)  and  non-physical 
(e.g.  back  office)  elements  which  have  an  importance  for  achieving  interoperability  in  the 
field of electronic toll collection. 

IRU: International Road Union 

KPI: Key Performance Indicator 

OBU: on-board unit – a device installed on-board the vehicle, communicating with roadside 
infrastructure or with a back office to communicate data necessary to calculate the toll due. 

RFID: Radio Frequency Identification  – wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer 
data,  for  the  purposes  of  automatically  identifying  and  tracking  tags  attached  to  objects. 
Passive  RFID  tags  collect  energy  from  the  interrogating  radio  waves  and  act  as  a  passive 
transponder. 

REETS: Regional European Electronic Toll Service – project co-financed by the European 
Commission aiming at deploying EETS compliant services in a cross-border regional project. 
The Project shall cover the electronically toll network of 7 Member States (Austria, Denmark, 
France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain) and Switzerland. 

Single  service  provider:  the  national  provider  of  toll  services  in  the  absence  of  EETS 
providers, designated by the toll charger. The single service provider is often integrated with 
the provider of technical solutions for the operation of the tolling system contracted by the toll 
charger. 

Tachograph:  device  fitted  to  a  vehicle  that  automatically  records  its  speed  and  distance, 
together with the driver's activity selected from a choice of modes. With certain exceptions, 
all lorries >3.5t and buses carrying >9 people in the EU must be equipped with a tachograph. 

Thick OBU: A 'thick' GNSS OBU is an on-board unit which establishes the position of the 
vehicle, compares it with digital maps stored in its memory, on this basis calculates the toll 
due and sends only this information to the back office.  

Thin OBU: A 'thin' OBU is an on-board unit which establishes the position of the vehicle and 
send the information to the back office. The calculation of the toll due takes place there. 

Toll charger: the one who perceives the toll. Typically the owner or operator of the road; two 
main  categories  of  toll  chargers  exist:  the  State  (or  a  State  agency)  on  publically  managed 
roads, and the concessionaire on conceded roads/motorways. 

50 

 
8.2.  Annex 2: Intervention logic 

Figure 2: Intervention logic part I: problems and outputs. 

DirectiveDecisionEFC systems in different Member States are not interoperableCurrentsituation in the EFC sector is not resource efficientSmooth functionning of the Internal Market for e-tolling for maximum resource efficiencySpecify three technologies  which can be used (Art 2)on-board equipement may be used for other technologies  and applications (Art 2.4)Cost and hassle reductionfor for  users  of tolled roadsRequirement for a consiliation body and Obligations / rights of EETS providers (art 4)Requirements to become an ETTS provider (art 3)Requirementsto be fulfilled by EETS (Art 13)Safeguard provisions (Art 15)Notified bodies (Art 17, 18)Registers  (Art19)Proliferation of technologies forElectronic Fee Collection (EFC)Lots of redundant equipement in the  vehicles usingsame  communication technologies (Satellite positioning, DSRC, GPRS)Highadministrative  and compliance  costs  for  road usersCost reduction for toll chargers  Ensure interopability  of electronictolls  at technical/ contractual/procedural level Ensure  thatthe technologies and components provided for in national EFC systems can be combined with other vehicle  componentsUsers must deal with many different counterparts  (procedural and contractual) for paying tolls in the EUProvidefor the setup of a European electronic toll system (Art. 3  and 4 )DriversRoot causesProblemGOSOOOInputs/ OutputsSetting up and maintenance of EFC Systems by toll chargers cost a lotThe OBUs cost a lotObligations / rights of EETSusers (art 9)Obligations / rights of Member States ( Art 12, 14)Obligations/right of toll chargers (Art 5)Interoperability constituents ( Art 14) 
 
 
 
 
Figure 3: Intervention logic: outputs and impacts. 

52 

OutputsSpecify three technologies  which can be used (Art 2)on-board equipement may be used for other technologies  and applications (Art 2.4)Providefor the setup of a European electronic toll system (Art. 3  and 4 )Gradualtechnical  and operational convergence Less/singlecounterpart(s) for the road user for paying tollsFullinteropability of tolling systems:-HDV -October 2012-other veh. -October 2014Reduction of costs and hassle for road users gradual elimination of manual  tolling, whichwould eliminate congestion at toll boothsContributionto wider application of the 'user pays' and 'polluter pays' principlesOutputResultsImpactsReduction of costs for toll chargers  
 
8.3.  Annex  3:  Synopsis  report  on  back-to-back  public  consultation  activities 

(covering both the ex post evaluation and the impact assessment) 

Synopsis report  

Revision of Directive 2004/52/EC and Decision 2009/750/EC) (legislative framework on 
the European Electronic Toll Service) 

Directive  2004/52/EC  lays  down  the  conditions  for  the  interoperability  of  electronic  road  toll 
systems in the European Union. The Directive requires that all new electronic toll systems brought 
into  service  shall  use  one  or  more  of  the  following  technologies:  satellite  positioning  (GNSS); 
mobile communications (GSM-GPRS); microwave technology (DSRC). 

The  Directive  also  sets  up  a  European  Electronic  Toll  Service  (EETS),  by  which  road  users  only 
subscribe  to  a  single  contract  with  an  EETS  provider  in  order  to  pay  the  charges  related  to  any 
charging  scheme  requiring  on-board  equipment.  The  detailed  definition  required  by  Directive 
2004/52/EC  regarding  technical,  procedural  and  legal  issues,  has  been  finalised  by  the  European 
Commission in Decision 2009/750/EC. 

The  ex  post  evaluation  assesses  the  effects  of  the  legislation  on  the  European  Electronic  Toll 
Service  (EETS)  and  its  implementation  over  the  period  of  2004-2014.  The  Impact  Assessment 
compares different policy options for addressing the problems identified by the ex post evaluation. 

Consultation activities 

In the context of the preparation of a back-to-back ex-post evaluation and impact assessment, 
the Commission  performed  five main consultation activities.  The purpose of these activities 
was:  

  Providing to the wide public and stakeholders an opportunity to express their opinion 
on the main issues related to electronic tolling and the way it is regulated at the EU 
level, as well as to express their position on the possible/desirable changes to the 
regulatory framework. 

  Gathering specialised input (data and information, expert views) on specific aspects of 
the legislation (e.g. pros and cons of certain technologies, standards, legal questions, 
etc.) from tolling stakeholders, with the aim of filling the data and information gaps in 
view of the preparation of the ex-post evaluation, the impact assessment and the 
legislative proposal. 

targeted 

(i.e.  governments, 
While  specialized  consultation 
concessionaires), users (hauliers, professional drivers, citizens, etc.), equipment providers (car 
manufacturers,  on-board  unit  manufacturers,  etc.),  tolling  service  providers,  standardisation 
experts  in  the  field  of  electronic  tolling  and  certification  specialists,  the  citizens  and 
undertaking were provided with opportunity to express their views in the course of the open 
public consultation (OPC) .  

infrastructure  providers 

The  stakeholders'  views  do  not  represent  the  official  position  of  the  Commission  and  its 
services  and  thus  do  not  bind  the  Commission.  The  input  gathered  corresponds  to  the 
objective of the consultation in both assessing the performance of the regulatory framework to 
date and also providing insights about possible challenges. 

1) 

An open public consultation (OPC) in the form of an on-line questionnaire 

The  open  public  consultation  was  open  between  8  July  and  2  October  (12  weeks).  The 
questionnaire contained questions mainly relevant for the general public, giving the citizen a 
chance to express their views on electronic tolling without going into technical details. It gave 
however respondents who wished to provide a more comprehensive opinion the opportunity 

53 

 
 
 
to expand on their views in several open questions, as well as to upload position papers and 
other documents as part of their contributions. 

For  the  Commission,  the  aim  of  this  consultation  activity  was  to  test  broad  policy  choices 
(both in the current legislation and considered in the framework of the legislative review) with 
the general public. This aim was reached. The relatively low response rate (73 answers) could 
be due to a very technical nature of the initiative for regular citizens on one hand and reflect 
the  interest  of  stakeholders  professionally  engaged  in  EETS  in  answering  more  specialized 
consultation activities on the other hand. The table below indicates the profile of respondents. 

Stakeholder category 

Number of 
responses 
29 

% of 
responses 
40% 

On  behalf  of  an  industry  association  or  a  non-governmental 
organisation (NGO) 
On behalf of a company 
As a citizen 
On behalf of a public authority93 
Other94 
Grand Total 
Views presented in the consultation were to a large degree concurrent; however, there was a 
number of outliers. 

29% 
15% 
12% 
4% 
100% 

21 
11 
9 
3 
73 

2) 

A call for written contributions publicly addressed to all stakeholders 

Stakeholders were given the opportunity to send spontaneously their contributions to the ex-
post evaluation and impact assessment exercises. The invitation to do so was published on the 
consultation web page, as well as announced at conferences, events, etc. As mentioned above, 
respondents  to  the  open  public  consultation  were  also  explicitly  invited  to  send  written 
contributions in the form of free text documents. 

In the call for position papers, contributors were explicitly invited to express their views on 
the problem(s) to be tackled, the issue of subsidiarity and the EU dimension of the problem, 
the  policy  options  and  their  impacts.  Contributors  were  also  invited  to  evaluate  the 
effectiveness,  efficiency  relevance  and  coherence  of  the  existing  legislation,  as  well  as  the 
added  value  of  EU  legislation  so  far,  taking  as  the  starting  point  the  published  evaluation 
roadmap. 

The quality of the contributions was very unequal, ranging from very general statements with 
little  use  to  opinions  on  specific  point  of  the  legislation.  The  latter  gave  the  Commission  a 
first indication on the position of some of the main stakeholders (including in particular the 4 
public authorities – cf. table below). 

No  deadline  for  submitting  written  contributions  was  given.  A  total  of  22  relevant 
contributions were received so far. The table below indicates the profile of respondents. 

Stakeholder Category 

Number of responses 

Tolling/motorway operators  9 

93  Public  authorities  from  the  following  countries  participated  in  the  open  public  consultation:  Czech  Republic,  Estonia, 

France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, United Kingdom. 

94  One  "company  and  citizen",  one  employee  of  a  ministry  which  did  not  choose  "on  behalf  of  public  authority"  and  the 

European Employers' Association. 

54 

 
 
                                                 
Transport undertakings 

Public authorities95 

9 

4 

A restricted consultation of professional stakeholders on issues related to the ex-
3) 
post  evaluation  in  the  form  of  several  tailored  questionnaires  with  open  questions 
addressed at different professional groups 

The targeted stakeholder consultation as part of the ex-post evaluation for the EETS Directive 
2004/52/EC  and  Decision  2009/750/EC  was  launched  on  26th  June  2015  and  was  open  for 
responses  until  1st  September  2015  (10  weeks).  The  main  objective  of  this  consultation 
activity  was  to  gather  information  and  data  to  fill  the  Commission's  knowledge  gaps  in  the 
preparation of the ex post evaluation. 

The questionnaires were sent to the following groups of stakeholders (a separate questionnaire 
to each group of stakeholders): 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Member States and toll chargers 

Toll service providers 

Commercial road users 

Private road users/automobile clubs 

A total of 22 responses to four separate questionnaires aimed at different EETS stakeholder 
groups were received from the European Commission, as shown in the table below. It must be 
mentioned  that  consultees  were  invited  to  spread  the  questionnaire  with  other  known 
interested  parties  –  this  explains  that  in  some  cases  the  number  of  answers  exceeds  the 
number  of  originally  consulted  parties).  Due  to  the  relatively  low  number  of  important 
stakeholders  and  good  organisation of  the  sector,  it  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  a  very 
representative body of stakeholders was reached in the frame of this exercise.  

Stakeholder category 

Number of stakeholders 
approached 

Number of responses (% 
response rate) 

% of 
responses 

Member  States  and  toll 
chargers 

Toll Service providers 

Heavy-duty 
electronic toll users 

vehicle 

Light-duty 
electronic toll users 

vehicle 

Grand Total 

36 

2 

2 

2 

42 

15 (42%) 

68.2% 

4 (200%) 

2 (100%) 

18.2% 

9.1% 

1 (50%) 

4.5% 

22 

100% 

95 Finland, France, Germany, Ireland. 

55 

 
 
                                                 
Besides  the  questionnaire,  addressees  were  also  provided  with  copies  of  the  evaluation 
roadmap, and  some of them decided to  react to the preliminary  assessment presented in the 
document. 

The quality of the contributions was unequal, but roughly half of the answers provided hard 
data  and  ample  information  which  fed  into  the  evaluation  Staff  Working  Document  of  the 
Commission.  The  other  half  contained  mainly  opinions  and  positions,  which  helped  the 
Commission to understand the stakeholders' position about the effectiveness and efficiency of 
the currently applicable legislation. 

A  restricted  consultation  of  professional  stakeholders  on  issues  related  to  the 

4) 
upcoming proposal on the revision of the EETS legislative framework.  

The targeted stakeholder consultation for the Impact Assessment on the revision of the EETS 
legislative  framework  was  launched  on  5th  October  2016  and  was  open  for  responses  until 
13th  November  2016  (six  weeks).  Respondents  were  also  given  the  opportunity  to  provide 
any further comments at the end of the questionnaire. To ensure the widest possible coverage, 
a call for expression of interest was published on the Commission's consultation website for 
stakeholders  wanting  to  be  consulted  in  the  framework  of  this  exercise  (in  addition  to  the 
distribution of the questionnaire with the established list of contacts of the Commission). 

The main objective of this consultation activity was to gather information and data to fill the 
Commission's knowledge gaps in the preparation of the problem definition part of the Impact 
Assessment,  but  also  to  test  with  the  stakeholder  community  the  possible  policy  option  and 
measures which could become part of the Commission's proposal. 

A  total  of  35  responses  to  the  questionnaire  were  received.  The  number  of  responses  was 
therefore considerably higher than in the framework of the similar consultation for the ex post 
evaluation,  and  the  average  quality  of  the  contributions  was  also  higher.  A  number  of 
excellent contributions were received containing deep analysis of the problems, statistics and 
other  figures,  and  recommendations  for  concrete  policy  solutions,  and  they  contributed  to 
considerably strengthen the evidence base for the impact assessment and for the drafting of an 
initial list of potential policy measures. 

The table below indicates the profile of respondents. 

Stakeholder category 

Number of responses  % of responses 

Public authority/administration  

Toll Service Provider 

Industry Association 

Toll Charger  

Represent more than one stakeholder category 

Toll system operator 

Consultancy  

Road users 

56 

8 

6 

5 

5 

4 

4 

2 

1 

23% 

17% 

14% 

14% 

11.5% 

11.5% 

6% 

3% 

 
 
Grand Total 

35 

100% 

5) 

Reactions to the evaluation roadmap and the inception impact assessment 

Stakeholders were given the opportunity to react to the published evaluation roadmap and the 
inception impact assessment. No contributions were however provided. 

Conclusive remarks 

While the absolute numbers of responses to each of the consultation activities are relatively 
low, they must be seen in the particular context of the electronic tolling market: a relatively 
small  and  specialised  market  with  a  limited  number  of  well  organised  stakeholders.  Many 
stakeholders did not decided to answer individually, but rather contributed to the drafting of 
co-ordinated positions of industry representative bodies.  

Obviously there were differences in the positions expressed in individual contributions, but a 
general consensus emerged as to the assessment of the current situation and the changes to be 
made  to  the  legislation.  This  is  particularly  visible  in  the  answers  to  the  open  public 
consultation, where a clear majority opted for the same or similar answers to each question. 
This consensus is less clearly visible – at first sight – in the other consultation activities, but 
this is mostly because they implied free text answers. Detailed analysis of the latter confirmed 
however the trend of answers converging to common positions of all stakeholder groups. This 
convergence is certainly the result of a high degree of organisation of the industry around the 
REETS  consortium96  in  which  the  main  categories  of  stakeholders  (Member  States,  toll 
chargers,  EETS  providers)  have  been  working  together  for  the  last  4  years  to  develop 
commonly agreed answers to the identified problems. 

Remaining  information  gaps  after  the  public  consultation  were  filled  with  the  help  of 
consultancies hired by the Commission to assist it in the preparation of the ex post evaluation 
and  of  the  Impact  Assessment.  The  consultants  performed  further  interviews  of  the  most 
important  stakeholders  to  extract  additional  data,  evidence  and  opinions.  These  interviews 
will be reported upon in the final report of the consultant due for mid-March 2017, which will 
be published on the Commission's website. The Commission has also held a large number of 
individual  meetings  with  stakeholders,  including  some  of  those  who  did  not  decide  to 
contribute  to  the  public  consultation  in  writing.  These  meetings  typically  covered  many 
issues,  and  it  is  difficult  to  extract  and  report  upon  just  the  parts  of  them  related  to  EETS. 
Finally, to cover the very specific aspects of standardisation of interoperability constituents in 
electronic toll collection, the Commission held a full day seminar involving representatives of 
3  notified  bodies,  the  European  Committee  for  Standardisation  and  two  equipment 
manufacturers  in  the  framework  of  a  meeting  of  the  Notified  Bodies  Co-ordination  Group 
(NoBos-CG) on 29 September 2015. This meeting was organised in the framework of one of 
the regular meetings of the NoBos-CG. Minutes from this meeting are not publicly available. 
The consultants reached out to some of the participants to this meeting to further discuss some 
of the topics touched upon during the seminar. 

Results of consultation activities 

1) Open public consultation 

Passenger cars 

The  majority  of  respondents  (62%)  agreed  that  the  EU  should  continue  regulating 
interoperability  between  electronic  tolls  applied  to  passenger  cars.  Three  times  the  amount 

96 www.reets.eu  

57 

 
 
                                                 
were in favour of this compared to those who believed this matter should be left to Member 
States. The question received a relatively mixed response when categorised into representing 
interests.  Responses  representing  ‘other’  interests  showed  the  strongest  agreement  with  the 
need  for  EU  regulation  (100%),  whilst  other  significant  interest  groups  (several  of  which 
represent  road  users,  e.g.  the  road  freight  transport  and  private  road  user  categories)  were 
approximately  50-80%  in  favour,  illustrating  the  desire  of  road  users  in  particular  to  have 
strong  rules  in  place  to  enforce  European  interoperability  of  electronic  tolling  for  cars.  Toll 
chargers/service  providers  were  most  strongly  in  favour  of  leaving  the  matter  to  Member 
States (43%), 

60% of respondents were in agreement that the EETS scope should be extended to automatic 
number plate recognition (ANPR) systems, which are widely used for the enforcement of free 
flow tolling systems  for passenger cars such as electronic vignettes (e.g. Hungary) or  urban 
congestion charging (e.g. London, Stockholm). 

When disaggregated into representing interest, differences were most apparent between road 
users (road freight transport operators, users, etc.) and toll chargers/service providers, with c. 
60-80% of respondents agreeing that the scope of EETS should be extended to include ANPR 
technologies, compared to just 16-48% respectively. 

Cross border enforcement 

A  large  majority  (77%)  of  respondents  were  in  favour  of  the  EU  establishing  a  mandatory 
mechanism  for  the  exchange  of  data  on  toll  offenders  to  facilitate  recovery  of  unpaid  tolls 
(and only  12%  were  against). When categorised into representing interest, strong consensus 
was  also  observed,  with  only  road  freight  transport  respondents  exhibiting  any  significant 
desire to remain with the status quo (27%). 

Enhancing market conditions of EETS providers 

51% of respondents felt that the European Union should leave the EETS providers to decide 
which  toll  domains  they  want  to  cover  by  their  services,  while  24%  only  believed  the  EU 
should  maintain  the  obligation  for  EETS  providers  to  cover  all  toll  domains  in  the  EU.  A 
broader  set  of  views  was  observed  when  representing  interests  are  taken  into  account. 
Unsurprisingly, given the significant complexity, costs and risk of covering all EU domains 
within 24 months of launch, a very large proportion (c.80%) of respondents representing toll 
chargers  or  service  providers  were  in  favour  of  allowing  EETS  providers  to  decide  which 
domains they should cover. However, only c. 30-35% of respondents from the other interest 
groups agreed that the regulation should be relaxed; between 50-67% of public authority and 
‘other’  representing  respondents  suggested  an  ‘other  solution’  as  described  above,  while 
between c. 45-55% of respondents representing private use and many/other transport modes 
suggest that the current obligation should be maintained. 

Over  three  quarters  of  stakeholders  thought  the  Commission  should  harmonise  accrediting 
procedures of EETS providers to different toll domains, with only 21% being against it. When 
disaggregated  by  representing  interest,  opinions  were  more  mixed.  Almost  all  road  user 
respondents  (i.e.  between  87-100%)  agreed  with  harmonisation  of  accreditation  activities, 
whereas toll infrastructure operators / stakeholders had more mixed views, in particular public 
authorities, with 67% of respondents not in favour of harmonisation. 

Ensuring fairness and non-discrimination 

There was also strong support for making sure that EETS providers are offered fair conditions 
when  entering  national  markets.  More  specifically,  63%  felt  that  EU  legislation  should 
provide for the separation of accounts between toll charger and toll service provider activities 
(to  avoid  negative  consequences  of  vertical  integration),  with  only  15%  opposing  the 

58 

 
 
measure.  When  disaggregated  by  representing  interest,  no  major  variations  were  apparent 
between interest group. 

62% of the respondents were even in favour of giving the Commission the right to scrutinise 
national  tender  plans  before  they  are  published,  to  prevent  the  creation  of  legally  protected 
monopolies.  The  opinion  between  different  groups  of  representing  interests  was  mixed. 
Respondents representing road users (i.e. transport, private car/motorbike use and many/other 
transport mode(s)) were in strong favour of the Commission being able to be involved in new 
electronic  tolling  systems  (between  73-80%),  whereas  respondents  representing  toll 
infrastructure  operators/service  providers  (i.e.  public  authorities  and  infrastructure  operators 
and solution providers) were strongly against this being adopted (between 40-83%). 

50% of respondents also supported the creation of strong and independent national entities to 
supervise the correct functioning of the tolling markets (market regulators). A wider range of 
views is apparent when considering the interests that the respondents represent. For example, 
73%  of  respondents  representing  road  freight  transport  agreed  that  powers  of  conciliation 
bodies  should  be  increased  to  enable  enforcement  of  mediated  outcomes,  in  comparison  to 
55%  of  infrastructure  operators/solution  providers  and  30-35%  of  public  authorities  and 
private users. 

2) Spontaneous written contributions  

Given  that  the  spontaneous  contributions  did  not  follow  any  specific  structure,  the  sub-
sections included below relate to the most important discussion points raised. 

The  need  for  EETS  is  centred  on  the  benefits  of  interoperability.  It  was  argued  that  those 
benefits  could  be  larger  for  heavy  goods  vehicles  in  regions  with  highest  concentration  of 
cross-border traffic, rather than for light vehicles and in peripheral regions. In any case, while 
Member States are capable of creating cross-border agreements, an EU-wide agreement is too 
complex for Member States without an EU-level legislative framework.  

Regarding  LDVs,  a  motorway  operator  suggested  however  that  the  EU  should  introduce 
legislation  to  achieve  interoperability  for  passenger  cars.  An  employers’  association  argued 
that it was essential to establish a common and harmonised EETS system which should also 
be expanded to cars. These views were however not given by any other respondents. 

The  positive  impacts  presented  in  the  contributions  received  centre  on  interoperability,  and 
the  resulting  shift  to  free  flow  tolling  solutions  which  have  social,  economic  and 
environmental advantages. 

The contributions raised a number of existing challenges that must be overcome before EETS 
can be realised. Most of these focused on the barriers facing EETS providers in entering the 
market and meeting the requirements set in the Directive, and called for more legislation to 
open  market  and  correction  of  the  current  regulatory  obstacles  including  the  excessive 
requirements  for  EETS  providers.  The  importance  of  stable  regulations  across  multiple 
markets  for  the  success  of  EETS  was  underlined  by  many  respondents  (in  particular 
(potential) EETS providers), just like the fact that expansion of EETS is currently blocked by 
too high costs and uncertainty on the market, both linked to the heterogeneous and complex 
processes of accreditation EETS providers to individual toll domains. 

Regarding technologies, there was overwhelming opposition to extending too hastily the list 
of  technologies  allowed,  as  this  could  hamper  the  objective  of  interoperability.  Yet,  the 
importance of keeping an eye on the potential of other technologies, and possibly extending 
some provisions of the directive to technologies currently permitted by the EETS Directive, 
but not covered by its provisions, was also underlined by several respondents. 

3)  Restricted  consultation  of  professional  stakeholders  on  issues  related  to  the  ex-post 
evaluation 

59 

 
 
Due to the very different questions targeted at each stakeholder group and the free-text nature 
of the responses, the analysis below is split by stakeholder group. 

a) Member States and Toll Chargers 

According  to  the  responses  received,  the  overall  message  is  that  EETS  has  the  potential  to 
provide  many  benefits including  reduced  costs for  all  stakeholders  involved  (financial,  time 
and  administrative).  However,  barriers  to  implementation  remain,  making  widespread 
deployment  of  EETS  unrealistic  in  the  short-medium  term.  Reasons  for  this  are  varied  and 
include:  

  Ensuring interoperability with all existing toll schemes requires significant investment 
and  effort  to  manage  the  technical  and  commercial  requirements  for  pan-EU 
interoperability.  
Increased technical complexity and costs to interface with multiple parties and back-
office systems. 

 

  Difficulties in  establishing robust toll collection and recovery  processes to  avoid toll 

evasion. 

Most  stakeholder  responses  received  agreed  that  many  benefits  arise  from  outsourcing 
relations  with  the  clients  to  specialised  companies;  however  the  motorway  operators  also 
discussed some disadvantages. A summary of the main discussion is presented below.  

According to national administrations and motorway operators EETS providers maintain 
relations  with  the  road  user,  and  toll  chargers  do  not  have  to  deal  with  customers  relations, 
which can save costs and hassle for them. The administrative burden and costs for collecting 
tolls  are  lowered.  They  can  economise  on  manpower  (including  reducing  headcount,  staff 
training  and  other  related  overheads)  and  investments  in  dedicated  back  office  equipment 
without jeopardising high quality standards. They can concentrate on their core business e.g. 
building/maintenance  of  infrastructure  and  traffic  management,  whilst  the  management  of 
individual customers is kept at arm’s length. For open road tolling systems, EETS can drive 
up  compliance  and  collection  levels,  particularly  for  foreign  traffic.  Road  users  can  also 
benefit  as  they  are  able  to  choose  their  contractual  partner  and  the  relationship  can  be 
processed in the client’s national language. They also only require one business relationship 
for  any  number  of  toll  systems.  Due  to  increased  competition,  service  providers  have  the 
potential  to  extend  the  range  of  services  they  offer  which  may  be  favourable  for  the  users, 
including the possibility of being charged a more reasonable price.  However, this depends on 
whether the service provider is able to make the administration more effective, thus reducing 
administrative costs and leading to lower costs for the customers. 

When  introducing  a  new  charging  scheme,  existing  OBUs  and  customer  base  of  the  EETS 
providers  can  be  used  by  toll  chargers,  thereby  reducing  the  amount  of  initial  investment. 
More  generally,  EETS  could  lead  to  systematically  adopted  electronic  tolling  infrastructure 
(which is cheaper to invest and operate than traditional tolling plazas). 

Respondents offered a more diverse range of opinions with regards to enforcement, and some 
responses can be categorised into benefits and disadvantages. Benefits of EETS with respect 
to  enforcement  include  reduced  (cross  border)  enforcement  effort,  reduced  risks  of 
fraud/foreign  defaulters  and  reduced  need  for  enforcement  and  improved  communication 
between Member States to identify offenders and recover fines. Disadvantages of EETS with 
respect to enforcement notably include more comprehensive and complicated enforcement, as 
competition  between  EETS  providers  and  relatively  open  standards  could  lead  to  multiple 
system design. 

Some  national  administrations  suggested  that  costs  and  compatibility  issues  would  arise 
from  the  use  of  different  interfaces,  and  operating  and  monitoring  with  multiple  EETS 

60 

 
 
 
partners would lead  to more technical,  operational and legal  burdens  – and  therefore higher 
costs. 

Most national administration respondents focussed on the benefits of greater acceptance of 
tolling  by  road  users  due  to  EETS.  They  believed  that  EETS  could lead  to  a  shift  in  public 
awareness and perception, helping tolling to be correctly viewed as a mainstream payment for 
a service. 

b) Toll service providers 

The  overall  message  was  that  while  there  is  a  market  for  interoperable  tolling  services  for 
HDVs,  it  was  difficult  to  assess  its  size,  but  that  there  was  only  limited  demand  for  such 
services for LVs. Fees paid to fuel card issuers were generally considered to be very low, but 
it was noted that fuel cards should not be seen to be a distinct means of payment. Toll service 
providers  perform  many  different  services  to  their  customers,  and  to  toll  chargers,  but 
transport companies will not be willing to pay more for EETS. While a lack of harmonisation 
was considered to constitute an obstacle to providing interoperable services, it was argued that 
this should be addressed through the harmonisation of the application of existing standards, 
rather than through the development of new standards. 

Regarding  demand  for  services,  toll  chargers  indicated  there  is  a  significant  demand  for 
interoperable toll collection service from heavy goods vehicles. There is no clear distinction 
between central and peripheral States, or between EU and neighbouring countries, as traffic 
flows  (and  therefore  demand)  do  not  always  follow  such  artificial  divisions.  The  overall 
message  is  that  EETS  coverage  should  be  based  on  customer  demand  rather  than  by  any 
imposed geographical boundaries. 

Toll  system  providers  agree  that  the  lack  of  harmonisation  can  constitute  an  important 
obstacle.  However,  technical  harmonisation  is  not  just  a  case  of  developing  and  applying 
standards; it is also about the way in which the standards are applied, interpreted and managed 
in detail. Rather than developing new standards, it would be better to harmonise the  way in 
which they are used, with a particular focus on satellite technology. 

From the perspective of toll service providers, allowing additional technologies in the short-
term would create additional obstacles, but should not necessarily be ruled out in the longer-
term.  Currently,  with  the  three  technologies  allowed  today,  this  is  still  no  viable  technical 
solution  that  can  be  used  on  all  networks  and  that  is  EETS-compliant.  Allowing  more 
technologies  would  require  additional  rules,  bringing  more  constraints  on  IT  interfaces  and 
requiring new OBUs, and so would not speed up the implementation of EETS.  

However,  all  of  the  technologies  allowed  by  the  Directive  could  now  be  considered  to  be 
mature  technologies.  If  a  new  technology  provides  added  value  compared  to  the  currently 
allowed technologies in terms of costs and technical performance, its introduction should be 
allowed after a transition period. 

c) Road users 

The  association  IRU  representing  hauliers  pointed  to  the  fact  that  foreign  hauliers  would 
represent up to 36% of the total road user charge revenues in the EU, exceed 50% in France, 
and increase from 25% to 40% in Germany. This indicates that the potential market size for 
interoperable HDV tolling services is set to increase, and they consider between a third and a 
half  of  the  EU  road  haulage  market  to  be  potential  EETS  users.  With  almost  all  EU  trucks 
being equipped with at least three or four on-board units (OBUs) and some with more than a 
dozen, considerable administrative burdens and costs exist for operators. 

For  EETS  to  be  successful,  EETS  providers  should  continue  to  be  required  to  provide  one 
single  financial  guarantee  covering  the  whole  EU,  however  toll  chargers  must  open  up 
existing contracts and not limit contracts to national markets, and technical harmonisation of 

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national  e-tolling  systems  must  be  guaranteed.  Provided  that  EU  interoperability  can  be 
achieved, IRU expects it would be welcomed as a minimum by EFTA countries where the EU 
has agreements covering the road freight transport market and with all neighbouring countries 
operating e-toll systems. 

Another hauliers' association UETR states that theoretically there is a business case for EETS, 
but  this  has  not  been  clearly  developed  in  the  Directive  or  Decision.  They  propose  that  a 
national  charging  system  could  be  based  on  a  single  EU-wide  OBU  that  is  installed  to  all 
trucks  during  manufacturing,  and  the  Galileo  satellite  system  could  be  used  for  this, 
registering tolled kilometres in each Member State. Data processing could then be left to the 
single service providers. They feel that policy makers need to take into consideration cost and 
user friendliness of the chosen system when determining the technology chosen for tolls, and 
therefore  one  single  device  to  register  and  pay  tolls  in  different  Member  States  is  the  way 
forward -  economies of scale can be realised and hardware costs reduced. 

The key message from the light vehicle users (only one respondent – ADAC) was that there is 
no need for EETS for light duty vehicle users. As long as the tolling systems in place are in 
accordance  with  EU  law  and  do  not  discriminate  any  Member  States,  different  systems 
between toll domains aren’t seen as a barrier. The “hassle and costs of compliance with the 
requirement  to  pay  road  tolls”  cited  in  the  European  Commission’s  ‘evaluation  and  fitness 
check roadmap’ are considered overstated, and the view that “users would be more ready to 
accept to pay for using roads if the payment means are interoperable at EU level” cannot be 
supported. 

4) Restricted consultation of professional stakeholders on issues related to the upcoming 
proposal on the revision of the EETS legislative framework. 

Out  of  all  respondents  asked,  a  strong  majority  (77%)  felt  that  the  requirement  for  EETS 
providers  to  cover  all  domains  within  24  months  is  a  problem,  while  12%  stated  it  didn’t 
particularly affect them and 11% didn’t answer. Unsurprisingly, the only respondents that felt 
the  problem  of  full  EU  coverage  within  24  months  did  not  affect  them  represented  toll 
infrastructure operators/chargers and industry associations. Almost half (45%) agreed with the 
solution to completely remove the requirement to cover all EETS domains within 24 months. 
21%  felt  that  replacing  the  requirement  with  one  to  cover  certain  regional  EETS  domains 
whilst allowing the coverage to be completed through partnerships with other EETS providers 
would  be  the  best,  whereas  the  least  preferred  solution  was  to  replace  the  requirement  to 
provide the service in the country of registration and all neighbouring countries, where only 
5% of respondents agreed. 

Regarding  the  issue  of  unfair  contract  conditions  for  EETS  providers,  the  following 
examples were provided: 

 

 

 

 

In  Italy,  where  the  national  service  provider  gained  an  unfair  advantage  due  to  the 
technical  standards  used,  as  the  norm  used  was  too  vague  to  be  the  sole  source  of 
knowledge. It took a long time to gain access to the full documentation.  
In  Austria, the  remuneration for service providers is  almost  similar to  those for card 
issuers,  whose  ‘only’  role  is  to  commercialise  the  OBU  of  the  national  service 
provider.  The  costs  of  interoperability  (including  adaptation  of  OBU  and  interfaces) 
are therefore not taken into account. 
In Belgium, the remuneration as a service provider is only slightly higher than the one 
given  by  the  national  service  provider  to  card issuers  who  are  commercialising  their 
OBU. Once again, the benefits of having various service providers is undervalued. 
In  Poland  on  the  A4,  an  OBU  is  offered  by  a  toll  service  provider,  whereas  the 
acceptance of additional OBUs has been refused, as the system was not yet ready to 
accept other OBUs. 

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 

Is  it  not  yet  defined  if  and  what  kind  of  remuneration  will  be  paid  in  Germany  and 
Belgium. 

The most preferred solution (26% of total responses) for solving the problem of unfair EETS 
markets was to have a strict separation of accounts between the toll charger and toll service 
provider.  This  was  followed  by  the option  defining  in  the  legislation  the  services  for  which 
EETS  providers  should  be  remunerated  by  the  toll  charger  (16%  of  total  responses).  The 
solution  that  was  least  supported  was  strict  separation  between  the  shareholders  of  toll 
chargers and service providers. 

A  number  of  examples  were  provided  that  increased  the  set  up  and/or  operational  cost  of 
schemes, including: 

  That  the  level  of  remuneration  for  GNSS-based  e-tolling  systems  is  not  higher  than 
that for DSRC technology, so it does not reflect the higher level of responsibilities and 
risks that are placed on service providers by GNSS-based e-tolling systems. 

  The substantial bank guarantees that have to be issued by the service provider to each 

concessionaire, e.g. in France. 

  OBU certification and back-office platform development are costly. 
  The  ‘agent  model’  limits  the  opportunity  for  the  EETS  provider  to  offer  their  own 
services  in  conjunction  with  EETS,  e.g.  fuel  and  drivers’  expenses  made  by  credit 
card, VAT services, etc. This model also sometimes requires the toll service providers 
to obtain a financial institution licence in order to operate. 

  Accreditation procedures that are specific to toll domains and are often unpredictable, 

can increase costs.     

  The complexity of VAT rules in some countries. 
  Lack of adherence to standards, e.g. on roadside equipment. 
 

In Italy, which uses UNI1 DSRC technology, its many small concessionaries are not 
ready for processing the certification of OBUs from various service providers. 

The  most  preferred  solutions  (%  of  total  response)  for  solving  the  problem  of  high  costs 
related  to  electronic  tolling  and  EETS  were  both  extending  the  standardisation  effort  by 
developing more profiled standards and thus harmonising tolling schemes to a greater degree 
and harmonising the procedure of 'accreditation' of the EETS provider to a toll domain. The 
least supported solution was putting upon toll chargers additional obligations in their relations 
with  EETS  providers,  such  as  the  obligation  to  provide  electronic  maps  in  GNSS  -based 
schemes,  or  to  support  the  handling  of  EETS  providers  through  a  harmonised  application 
profile. 

There  was  strong  agreement  with  regards  to  negative  costs  arising  due  to  a  lack  of 
interoperability,  in  and  particular  emphasis  was  put  on  the  fact  that  the  absence  of 
interoperability has, from the point of view of transport companies, increased costs in terms of 
multiplication of OBUs, invoices, service fees and fines.  

Regarding  the  problem  of  cross-border  enforcement  of  tolls,  the  following  statistics  and 
information were provided: 

 

 

 

In  Poland,  38%  of  identified  infringements  in  relation  to  toll  collection  concerned 
foreign-registered vehicles. 

In Portugal, in 2015 25% of toll evasion was by foreign-registered vehicles, with 78% 
of these coming from Spain and 62% of these being heavy duty vehicles. 

In Italy, it was considered that in general toll avoidance was intentional, but no data 
on the level of avoidance was provided.   

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 

 

 

 

In  France,  the  proportion  of  toll  evasion  by  non-domestic  vehicles  is  40%,  which 
increases  to  60%  for  some  toll  domains  that  are  particularly  vulnerable  to  cross-
border traffic. The proportion of foreign-registered vehicles has increased recently, as 
a result of legislation that has reduced the number of toll evasion  cases by domestic 
vehicles by nearly 80%. 

In  Sweden,  it  is  considered  that  the  vast  majority  of  foreign-registered  vehicles  pay 
the tolls. 

In Austria in 2015, there were 108,000 tolling offences by foreign-registered vehicles 
under the HDV toll, which was 89% of the total number of tolling offences that year. 
For  the  light-duty  vignette,  117,000  cases  –  63%  of  the  total  –  were  attributed  to 
foreign vehicles. 

In Slovenia, it has been observed for the vignette tolling that there are more violations 
amongst foreign-registered vehicles than amongst locally-registered vehicles, whereas 
there is no noticeable difference in toll evasion between foreign-registered and local 
HDVs.  It  is  considered  that  the  main  reason  for  not  paying  is  an  attempt  to  avoid 
payment,  as  a  result  of  expectations  of  an  inability  to  enforce  toll  recovery  across 
borders. 

Respondents  generally  agreed  that  the  exchange  of  information  between  Member  States  on 
the identity of toll offenders should be mandated by EU law irrespective of the type of toll or 
vehicle, rather than being left to bilateral agreements. It was also suggested that the EU should 
also negotiate suitable arrangements with neighbouring countries. Various respondents agreed 
that the approach taken by the cross border data exchange relating to road safety offences was 
a good model, or at least a good starting point, for developing a system for the enforcement of 
toll evasion. 

46%  (11  respondents)  felt  that  differing  national  laws  relating  to  the  protection  of  personal 
data  impedes  the  cross-border  enforcements  of  toll  payments.  16%  of  respondents  did  not 
think  this  was  the  case,  17%  could  not  answer  due  to  lack  of  knowledge,  and  21%  did  not 
directly answer. 28% (five respondents) agreed that current differing national data protection 
regimes  give  rise  to  difficulties  in  EETS  providers’  system  designs,  whereas  28%  also 
believed this not to be the case. An additional 22% (four respondents) could not answer and 
another 22% did not directly answer but provided additional comments. 

Regarding new technologies, ANPR systems were mentioned by a number of respondents as 
having the potential to be used as a toll collection technology or as an additional technology 
to enforce toll collection. Some argued that EU legislation was not necessary at this stage as 
such  systems  did  not  raise  interoperability  issues  in  the  way  that  electronic  toll  collection 
does,  while others argued that EU legislation should  cover ANPR in  the longer-term. RFID 
was  also  seen  as  a  potentially  promising  technology  that  EU  legislation  could  cover  in  the 
longer-term. One respondent said that RFID sticker tag technology would be appropriate for 
tolling light duty vehicles, while embedded electronic technology, such as DSRC, linked to an 
account  that  can  be  managed  through  a  smart  phone,  might  also  be  considered  for  such 
vehicles.  The  same  respondent  believed  that  “high-end  technology”,  such  as  GNSS  based 
OBUs,  have  the  potential  to  provide  multiple  benefits  for  heavy  duty  vehicle.  It  was  also 
suggested  that  fleet  management  systems  could  be  used  for  tolling,  while  video  technology 
capabilities were also improving fast.  Additionally, a number of respondents stated that the 
question of a dedicated bandwidth for DSRC toll systems needed to be clarified. 

Regarding  the  differences  between  heavy  duty  and  light  duty  vehicles,  a  strong  majority 
(64%) felt that instead of removing light vehicles from the EETS scope altogether, having a 
number of specific rules for different vehicle types was the better option to solve the issues 
between  different  vehicles  and  requirements.  The  different  treatments  proposed  for  LDVs 

64 

 
 
included  there  being  no  requirements  for  a  GNSS  OBU  for  these  vehicles,  and  instead 
allowing ANPR-based systems and RFID. The rules, processes and even timelines that would 
apply to light duty vehicles could also be different to those applying to HDVs. 

Use of consultation results 

The results of the restricted consultation of professional stakeholders on issues related to the 
ex-post evaluation were heavily used as a source of information and statistics for drafting the 
ex  post  evaluation  of  the  EETS  legislation.  They  were  widely  referred  to  in  the  evaluation 
staff working document. 

In a similar manner, the results of the restricted consultation of professional stakeholders on 
issues  related  to  the  upcoming  proposal  on  the  revision  of  the  EETS  legislative  framework 
was used to feed the impact assessment. Many of the policy measures included for analysis as 
part  of  policy  options  in  the  impact  assessment  directly  reflect  the  suggestions  made  by 
stakeholders in this consultation activity and in the position papers sent spontaneously to the 
Commission. Actually, the policy options were drafted only once the results of the restricted 
stakeholder  consultation  were  available.  The  contributions  to  the  stakeholder  consultation 
(both open public consultation and the two restricted consultations) as well as the spontaneous 
positions of the stakeholders were shared with the consultants who worked on the IA support 
study.  

Finally,  the  results  of  the  open  public  consultation  overwhelmingly  confirmed  the 
Commission's  initial  views  and  approach  to  the  ex  post  analysis  and  to  the  Impact 
Assessment. 

65 

 
 
 
 
 
 
8.4.  Annex 4: Bibliography 

4icom, Expert Review of the EETS Legislative Acts, 2015  

4icom, Steer Davies Gleave, Study on “State of the Art of Electronic Road Tolling” 

MOVE/D3/2014-259, 2015  

European Commission, White Paper, Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – 

Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system, COM(2011) 144 final. 

Steer Davies Gleave, Technology options for the European Electronic Toll Service, Study 

performed for the European Parliament, 2014  

Zoltán Varga, Introduction of HU-GO, the Hungarian distance based electronic toll system, 

2014 . 

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8.5.  Annex 5: Overview of tolling systems in the EU 

Figure 4: Overview of the road charging systems applying to light vehicles in the EU. 

67 

 
 
 
 
 
Figure 5: Overview of the road charging systems applying to heavy goods vehicles in the 
EU 

68