The German Pro-Rail Alliance has criticised the federal government’s proposed changes to the regulations on motorway charges for HGVs. “The transport ministry is planning to take two steps backwards when it comes to protecting the environment,” said Dirk Flege, managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance in Berlin on Tuesday. The government’s plans would result a reduction in the next years of 62 million Euros in spending on rail infrastructure, which is already underfunded, and make it harder to switch freight transport to the environmentally friendly railways. In addition, prolonging the benefits the Euro III HGV emissions category, while simultaneously planning to increase the burden imposed on the Euro IV and Euro V categories for HGVs, is “ill advised environmental policy”. Flege: “The intended changes to the toll regulations will financially punish those forward-looking road hauliers who put their trust in current legislation and invested in vehicles to upgrade their fleet of HGVs to the more environmentally friendly Euro V category.”

One example of a company that has invested in modern vehicles that will be hit by the government’s plans is the road haulier Paneuropa Roesch GmbH, located in Vechta in Lower Saxony. Sales director Marek Dolinski said: “With an average of 13,000 kilometres per month and truck, we are looking at additional annual costs of around 10,000 Euros if the promised reduction of 0.001 Euro per kilometre for Euro V trucks is not forthcoming. These proposals are very surprising and disappointing at the same time.”

The federal transport ministry’s draft for the ‘second act on changes to the regulations on road charges’ was made available to the transport sector in mid August. It proposes that the temporary reduction in tolls on Euro III category HGVs, which was supposed to end on 31.12.2010, should be extended indefinitely. In return, the planned reduction in charges on HGVs in the Euro V category, due to take effect from 1.1.2011, will be cancelled.

Flege: “For the government, this wavering on transport policy will lead to reduced income from tolls of 163 million Euros by 2013. The allocation formula used for distributing the income means that 62 million of that deficit will go to railways. On top of that, the government’s political credibility on environmental issues will fall by the wayside. After all, the current regulations on toll charges, which provide for a wider banding between the different HGV emissions categories, were passed by the government in 2008 as part of its climate protection programme.”