Hungary tightens the envirocategory in the toll system

In Hungary, the HU-GO toll system has been tightening the rules for determining the environmental category of vehicles over 3.5 tonnes since 1 July 2021. TASR was informed about this on Tuesday by the Hungarian motorway company NÚSZ, which emphasized that the interested parties have a month to prove the environmental assessment of their vehicles in the system. NÚSZ stated that from 1 July 2021 it automatically classifies into the worst environmental category those trucks registered in the HU-GO system with a total vehicle weight of more than 3.5 tons, registered abroad, whose environmental assessment cannot be reliably demonstrated by carriers. Stakeholders thus have one month to enter the mandatory extended registration data (make, year of manufacture, chassis number) into their HU-GO profile and to upload a vehicle document containing the environmental classification. The primary objective is to better enforce the "polluter pays" principle. One of the elements in determining the toll for the use of road lorries with a gross vehicle weight of more than 3.5 tonnes is the environmental category. Its determination - the correct provision of the necessary data and their substantial document - is a prerequisite for the payment of tolls for all lorries using toll roads in Hungary in a way that is in line with the level of environmental pollution and emissions. "While in the case of lorries registered in Hungary, the NSA can check the environmental classification from the Hungarian public vehicle register, in the case of vehicles registered abroad this is not currently possible. However, compliance with the "polluter pays" principle applies to everyone, so we have introduced mandatory - based on our general terms and conditions - the provision of extended registration data (make, year of manufacture, chassis number) and the upload of a vehicle environmental category document in the HU-GO profile,“ specified Tamás Bartal, General Director of NÚSZ. The foreign directors called on foreign carriers to check over the next month that the required data had been provided correctly and that the necessary documents had been uploaded, and if not yet, to complete them. "We also ask our clients to remove vehicles from their HU-GO profile that they no longer own. Of course, we will inform all interested parties directly and indirectly," added Bartal.