Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Electrotechnology,
grade: 1,3, Reutlingen University (Produktionsmanagement), language:
English, abstract: In times of the EU Enlargement Germany has been faced
with steadily increasing freight and transit traffic, due to its
geographical position in the middle of Europe. The German expressway
system has an overall length of approximately 25.000 kilometers (both
directions) and therewith is the longest system in Europe. Overall 1.2
million trucks use the German expressways and cover a total distance of
22.7 trillion kilometers every year. The preservation and further
expansion of this system is an important leverage of development for
Germany and Europe as a whole. The costs for road construction and
maintenance have been rising directly proportional to the transit
traffic. Since this burden was only carried by Germany's public, namely
by the German citizens' taxes, the Federal Government launched a
distance-based toll for all heavy goods vehicles with a total weight of
12 tons or more, driving on German expressways. This so-called "LKW
Maut" came into effect on January 1st, 2005 and is a watershed in
financing. For the first time the costs for maintenance are allocated to
those who predominantly cause the abrasion. Politics call this a better
and fairer financing of the infrastructure. One heavy truck stresses the
streets 60.000-times more than a car. In addition this toll system leads
to a higher transport efficiency, which can be seen in the fact that
empty return trips went back from over ten to nine percent in 2005,
respectively. Thereby it also has a positive effect on sustainability.
The fee, each truck has to pay, is defined in accordance to the number
of axles, the relating emissions class and the distance travelled.
Political background of the toll is to shift freight traffic from the
roads to railroad and waterways. Toll Collect GmbH has been responsible
for developing a toll system in the name of the Fed
