Truck toll: haulage companies expect higher costs
Haulage companies and associations in Saxony-Anhalt are criticizing the increase in the truck toll on 1 December. This will inevitably lead to an increase in consumer prices, said Sebastian Schenk, Managing Director of the General Employers' Association for Saxony-Anhalt. This would ultimately affect all products: from food to clothing and consumer goods. The increase in the toll is nothing more than a hidden tax increase and will place an additional burden on consumers and companies.
In October, the Bundestag passed a law to this effect by the traffic light coalition. A CO2 surcharge will be added to the existing toll to take greater account of pollutant emissions. This amounts to 200 euros per ton of CO2. According to the federally owned operator Toll Collect, this will increase the toll per kilometer from 19 to 34.8 cents in the cheapest truck class, for example.
The Federal Ministry of Transport also expects additional costs to be passed on to customers. 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, according to the draft bill. The impact on the consumer price level would therefore be "marginal".
For haulage companies, the change would involve a great deal of effort, especially in the run-up to Christmas, said Torsten Sohr from the TMG haulage company in Bitterfeld-Wolfen. The company anticipates additional costs of 4.1 million euros per year for its 200 vehicles, which would have to be passed on to customers. The short-term implementation of the law is causing particular problems. Although customers were informed of the rising costs from the summer onwards, for example via the e-mail signature, the law was only passed in October, so it was only possible to conduct concrete contract negotiations afterwards.
Sohr criticized the fact that empty runs were not taken into account even though the CO2 emissions were significantly lower. He would also like to see a standardized European billing model.
The Federal Association of Freight Transport, Logistics and Waste Disposal (BGL) predicts that the toll increase will not have the desired effect. The German government's wish that more electric trucks would be used is not feasible, said board spokesman Dirk Engelhardt. There are no corresponding charging stations at all and electric trucks are often not even available on the market. "The companies are all under pressure," said Engelhardt. Now the toll issue is on top of that.
The increased truck toll, resulting from the Bundestag's October law, will undeniably lead to upward pressure on consumer prices due to higher transportation costs for haulage companies. This climate-conscious surcharge, aimed at curbing pollutant emissions, may have a marginal impact on the overall consumer price level but will place an additional burden on both consumers and businesses.
Source: www.dpa.com
