Long lines for toll payment should become a thing of the past.
Advisors from the Spanish consulting company IDOM Consulting will soon propose how the tolls on motorways managed by state-owned Croatian companies will be paid in the future, reports Večernji List on June 6, 2018.
The Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure opened the bids received for the tender for selection of a contractor to draft the electronic toll collection system study. Four technical and financial offers were received – a joint proposal by Ernst&Young Consulting Croatia and Ernst&Young Germany, MultiContract Consulting from Hungary, CGI from the Czech Republic, and IDOM. Technical conditions were met only by the Croatian-German consortium and the Spanish company, so in the second round, their financial bids were opened.
Ernst&Young's offer was for 1,124,080 euro, while IDOM offered to do the job for 875,526 euro. The estimated value of the project was one million euro with VAT. Given that the Spaniards are less expensive, they will be offered the job, and the contract should be signed in about a week.
The ministry says that both bidders offered project teams which include four local and seven international experts. Advisors will have to design the new toll collection model according to the three main criteria: the payment system must be contactless, cashless and without cars having to stop. The calculation of the price must be made according to the mileage.
All these conditions are part of the EU guidelines which make sure that toll collection systems in the Union become interoperable. There are currently seven different electronic toll collection systems in the EU, and the aim is to introduce two major systems – DSCR (dedicated short-range communications) and GNSS (global navigation satellite systems), which is the satellite toll collection. For both of these systems, vehicles must have devices installed to calculate the kilometres travelled and toll prices. DSCR is already in existence in Croatia as the ENC system, but it should be improved so that vehicles do not have to stop in order for the ENC device to be read by sensors. The speed for both systems should be between 40 and 80 kilometres per hour.
The consultants will have to consider which collection system would best suit Croatia given the high seasonality of motorway traffic since around 40 percent of the total annual turnover is realized in just three summer months.
After the signing of the contract, IDOM will have nine months to complete the study and recommend a new toll collection system. That will be followed by a tender for the acquisition of the new technology that should be installed starting from 2020. The selection of the consultants for the toll collection system is being conducted with the consent of the World Bank and as part of the broader project of modernization and restructuring of the Croatian road sector.
Translated from Večernji List (reported by Josip Bohutinski).
