Higher truck toll - climate component and money for the railways

Traffic - Higher truck toll - climate component and money for the railways

From today, a significantly higher toll will apply to heavy goods vehicles on German highways and federal roads. The user charge now also includes a surcharge for the emission of climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO2).

The basis for the specific additional costs depending on the vehicle's emissions is a surcharge of 200 euros per ton of CO2. The federal government expects the new CO2 component to generate billions in additional revenue, which will also flow to the railways for the first time. The freight forwarding industry protested against the charges and warned of rising consumer prices.

Changes should also provide incentives

The truck toll is calculated on the basis of the distance driven and a toll rate in cents per kilometer, which previously already included shares for infrastructure costs as well as for noise and air pollution. For the new CO2 surcharge, trucks will be assigned to emission classes, as the federally owned toll operator Toll Collect explained. The background to the climate differentiation is an EU directive. The changes adopted by the Bundestag are also intended to provide incentives to get more cleaner trucks on the roads. Emission-free trucks are exempt from the toll until the end of 2025. However, the transport industry complains that there are hardly any electric trucks and there is a lack of charging points.

The increase will be followed by an extension of the toll according to the law passed by the traffic light coalition in October: from 1 July 2024, it will be due for smaller vans over 3.5 tons instead of 7.5 tons as before. The Ministry of Transport estimates that 300,000 new vehicles will be subject to the toll. However, journeys by trade businesses will remain exempt. To date, around one million heavy goods vehicles from Germany and abroad are on the road with on-board computers for toll collection.

Billions in revenue expected

In future, the federal government is to receive more money, which can be reserved for transport investments regardless of uncertain budgetary situations. The expected revenue will jump from just under eight billion euros this year to more than 15 billion euros next year. From 2024 to 2027, additional revenue of 30.5 billion euros is expected to be generated.

The use of this revenue will also be reorganized: Half of the toll revenue is to continue to be earmarked for improvements to federal trunk roads - the rest predominantly for "measures from the federal railroads sector", as the draft bill stated.

The haulage industry has already come out against the sharp increase, which would have to be passed on to customers. The Federal Ministry of Transport is also expecting this. However, toll costs only make up a small proportion of transport costs and an even smaller proportion of the total costs of the end product, the draft bill stated. Therefore, the effects on the consumer price level would be "marginal".