The new sections of the D35 motorway significantly eased the burden on the municipalities on the I/35 road, over 66,000 lorries travelled along the new motorway in January

Prague, 21 February 2023 – After the decline in December, toll collection returned to growth in the first month of 2023. Carriers paid 1.16 billion Czech crowns for using toll roads, up 3.4 percent year-on-year. The newly opened section of the D35 motorway between Časy and Ostrov, which measures 14.7 kilometres, also contributed to the growth. CzechToll started collecting tolls here as of 1 January 2023.

In January, approximately 34,000 vehicles with a maximum permissible weight exceeding 3.5 tons travelled along the newly opened section of the D35 motorway in the direction from Časy to Ostrov, and approximately 32,000 vehicles in the opposite direction. Just like last year, as a result of the opening of the new section of the D35 motorway, there was a fundamental decrease in the number of lorries passing through the parallel 1st category road of I/35 – in the direction from Holice to Nová Ves the toll system recorded the passage of over than 37,000 vehicles weighing over 3.5 tons in January 2022. In January 2023, it was just over 9,600 vehicles. In the opposite direction, the number of lorries passing decreased from almost 39,000 vehicles in January 2022 to 13,000 vehicles in January 2023.

“Meanwhile January is traditionally one of the months with the highest toll collection. The diversion of heavy vehicles onto the motorway should thus be even more noticeable in the following months of this year, because, for example, in the strongest months of 2022, approximately 10,000 more trucks travelled along the I/35 road in the given section per month than in the comparative month of January 2022,” said Petr Chvátal, CzechToll CEO.

Busiest toll sections in 2022

Last year, the CzechToll satellite toll system recorded the most toll transactions on the Brno section of the D1 motorway. Between the motorway exits of Brno-Centrum and Brno-Jih 1 more than 6 million toll transactions were recorded in both directions for the entire year 2022. The tolls collected here exceeded the amount of 61 million Czech crowns. The second busiest section is also on the D1 motorway: between the exits of Modletice and Doubravice in both directions, the toll system recorded 5.7 million transactions with the collection of 22.4 million Czech crowns.

Of 1st category roads, the I/52 road south of Brno has been in the lead uninterruptedly since the launch of the satellite toll system in December 2019. In the direction from Brno between Modřice-Sever and Modřice-Jih, 1.2 million toll transactions were recorded (toll collection in the amount of CZK 1.4 million), in the opposite direction to Brno, between Modřice-Jih and Brno also 1.2 million toll transactions were recorded, but taking into account the length of the section, the collection amounted to 5.3 million crowns.

Over one half (51.5 percent) of the total tolls collected in 2022 was paid by foreign carriers. After vehicles with domestic license plate numbers, toll roads in the Czech Republic were most often used by vehicles from Poland (the share of total toll collection in 2022 reached 19.4%), Slovakia (8.8%) and Romania (6.1%).

In total, vehicles from 64 countries and 4 world continents travelled on toll roads in 2022.

At the end of January, over 752 thousand vehicles weighing over 3.5 tons were registered in the electronic toll system, of which 579 thousand vehicles had foreign license plate numbers. The number of on-board units issued to carriers surpassed 601 thousand.