May brought a slight revival of traffic in the Czech Republic: Toll collection increased by 14% compared to April to 852 million Czech crowns

Prague, 11 June 2020 – In May 2020 carriers paid for driving on toll roads the total amount of CZK 851.74 million. The year-on-year decline in toll collection fell from 19% in April to 13% in May. According to statistics of CzechToll, which operates the toll system, the recovery is coming much faster in freight than in bus transport.

The new satellite toll system has not yet celebrated its first birthday and has already undergone two major stress tests. After a demanding process of launching as of 1 December 2019, CzechToll had to manage to maintain the full operation of the country’s critical infrastructure even during the crisis caused by COVID-19.

“Thanks to the measures taken, it was possible to keep the toll system running without any outages and without fundamental restrictions on services for users. In connection with the release of measures, CzechToll also resumed full operation at all points of sale and contact points as of 1 June. Drivers will especially welcome the option of returning unnecessary on-board units at points of sale again,” said Petr Chvátal, CzechToll’s Chief Operating Officer.

Toll system statistics show in detail how the pandemic affected the transport sector. While the performance of carriers in freight transport gradually decreased over the course of four weeks by almosť 40 percent and then returned to cautious growth, for bus carriers the decline came significantly faster, was much deeper and the performance is now returning more slowly

The toll system statistics also offer an interesting view when divided into Czech and international carriers. At the end of May, approximately the same number of freight carriers from the Czech Republic used Czech motorways as in the period before the crisis. The number of foreign carriers reached 85% of the pre-crisis level. At the end of May, Czech bus carriers had 68% of vehicles back on Czech motorways compared to the pre-crisis level, while only 9% of foreign buses were returned.