October the 17th, 2024 – A look at the future Croatian toll payment system, the key points that drivers need to know and more as shown in a new video.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, a useful video on the future Croatian toll payment system will give us a look into the key aspects, with the content having been divided into several segments. The introduction explains the shortcomings of the current toll collection method, and then presents the new Croatian toll payment system that will be introduced. It details how the new system will work, including express registration lanes, toll booths and mobile toll units. The video mentions, among other things, the contractors who will work on this massive project, as well as the expected deadlines for putting the system into function. The possibilities for reducing congestion at toll booths are also being considered.
an 80 million euro contract with slovak and czech enterprises
As a reminder, the contract for the implementation of the new Croatian toll system itself, worth slightly less than 80 million euros, was signed with the companies SkyToll from Slovakia and TollNet from the Czech Republic back in September. The actual work on the ground will begin in four to five months. Those works will include the infrastructure on which new cameras and lasers for the detection of license plates and ENC devices will be placed. As for the existing toll booths themselves, dismantling is the plan for them, but when that will happen isn’t yet known, as reported by Večernji list.
retraining and severance pay for current toll booth employees
“The removal of the existing toll booths is part of this wider Croatian motorways project and will be carried out in several stages. The most probable scenario is that frontal ones will be removed first, and then the side ones will go second”, explained the President of the HAC Management Board, Boris Huzjan.
As for the people who currently work in them, it has been stated that some of them will leave through natural attrition with incentive severance pay, while the other part will be retrained because there will be other work for them to do. Those who will undergo re-training will primarily work within the team of mobile units that will be in direct communication with the central system in order to control the vehicles which haven’t paid the toll.
When looking into exactly how that will work, we must first look at the chosen payment method itself. The future Croatian toll payment can be done in two ways; by purchasing an ENC or registering a bank card from which the amount for the toll can be deducted from the driver. The first option will be mandatory for trucks, and all ENC devices will henceforth be linked to one car’s license plate and must be displayed on the front windshield at all times.
The second option with a bank card will work so that the data from the card will be given on the intended website (which isn’t yet live). For those who aren’t used to the Internet, they’ll be able to register at the sales offices of HAC, Bina and AZM, at one of the sales partners (fuel stations, technical inspection stations…) or on the motorways themselves. In such cases, immediately before a vehicle enters the road, there will be a “dedicated track for quick registration”. In other words, the vehicle will need to enter the registration lane, stop briefly so that the system automatically recognises the vehicle’s registration number and the user then enters their bank card information themselves.
The mobile units will be in charge of charging the toll fees to those who will undoubtedly somehow try to avoid paying it. One method for trying to do this has already been clocked, and that is purposely registering a bank card with insufficient funds in the account it is connected to. Drivers who attempt this will be detected by the system being installed. The mobile units, which are actually cars (74 of them in total), will then have the legal right to stop violators. Those who successfully manage to cheat the future Croatian road toll system, at least according Minister of Transport Oleg Butković, will amount to – zero.
