Burgenland drops planned truck toll after agreement

Burgenland will not introduce a truck toll on its state roads after the state government and the Burgenland Chamber of Commerce reached an agreement, ORF reported. Heavy-goods traffic will instead be directed along designated routes and regulated through additional restrictions.

The planned toll had been sharply criticised by the Chamber of Commerce at the end of August. The organisation then conducted its own truck count to show that much of the truck traffic in Burgenland was connected to the local economy.

“With this viable and effective package of measures to shift traffic, the state of Burgenland is abandoning the introduction of its own truck toll on the state road network,” Transport Minister Heinrich Dorner of the Social Democratic Party said in a statement.

Governor Hans Peter Doskozil said Burgenland must not be misused as a cheap shortcut or a toll-avoidance route for international heavy-goods traffic. The main priorities, he said, were the safety of residents, reducing traffic noise and improving quality of life.

Chamber of Commerce President Andreas Wirth called the agreement “a very good solution” for the regional economy that would also ease the burden on residents affected by transit traffic. He said the agreement demonstrated a good working relationship between the chamber and the state.

Existing weight restrictions on east-west crossings will remain and will be tightened from 7.5 tonnes to 3.5 tonnes. Additional driving bans are planned to prevent bypass traffic on state and municipal roads.

International truck transit will be directed through three “high-capacity corridors”: the A4 in northern Burgenland, the newly built Fürstenfeld expressway (S7) in the south, and the B61a and S31 in central Burgenland. The ASFINAG toll model will be applied to the latter routes in future.

Traffic with an origin or destination in Burgenland is to be reduced to the state’s roads. The relevant regulations are expected to be amended in the coming weeks, while through-traffic across Burgenland on state and municipal roads will continue to be prevented.

The state government and the Chamber of Commerce also said maintaining the regional road network was a responsibility of the entire country. Doskozil said they would jointly press the federal government for fair federal and fiscal-equalisation funding to repair and modernise rural transport infrastructure.