Czech company W.A.G. is the sixth business in Europe to acquire the licence. The new system will make paying for toll in the EU more straightforward for road carriers. The European Union is behind the European Electronic Toll Service initiative.
W.A.G. payment solutions, also known by the Eurowag brand (EW), a leading provider of road mobility payment solutions in Europe has received authorisation from the Czech Ministry of Transport to provide a European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) in Europe. This makes them the first entity in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe to be awarded the licence.
Of all the European Union member states, only five companies have been granted authorisation to provide electronic toll as EETS providers. W.A.G. is the sixth company in Europe to acquire the licence regulated by the European Directive 2004/52/EC and Decision 2009/750/EC on the European Electronic Toll Service (EETS). In future, the licence will make it possible for W.A.G. to provide carriers with toll payments in all countries signed up to EETS, using one single on-board unit.
“The idea of unifying toll collection appealed to me right from the start. The current system, which requires truck drivers transporting goods around Europe carry several on-board units, is somewhat impractical. The administrative burden associated with registering and operating vehicles as part of various toll systems is also unnecessarily high. The notions of innovation and improvement are built into our DNA at W.A.G which explains why we are among the first entities to be awarded the EETS licence and one of only a few in Europe to be working intensively on this demanding project,” W.A.G. payment solutions founder and CEO Martin Vohánka reveals. “With the licence we can now start to appeal to individual toll system operators in the EU who are ready to introduce European Electronic Toll Service,” he adds, speaking of the next step in the EETS rollout.
The European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) is a European Union initiative with the aim of facilitating toll payments for carriers in Europe. EETS is expected to resolve the current issue where carriers are obligated to register vehicles onto each toll system in Europe separately and where several on-board units need to be carried inside the vehicle. EETS aims to have one on-board unit accepted by toll system operators in EU countries. Carriers will purchase this unit from the EETS provider and not from the toll system operators as currently applies in most countries.
W.A.G. has a long track record working with the REETS (Regional European Electronic Tolling Services) project, the regional version of EETS. Its aim involves pilot implementation of toll collection collaboration in selected European countries. W.A.G. is a member of the AETIS association which brings together Service providers to promote the development of interoperability at the European level. Additional information:
Acting under the Eurowag (EW) corporate brand, W.A.G. payment solutions ranks among the 6 largest European providers of payment solutions for road mobility. Eurowag customers comprise professional transport companies and hauliers and now also companies operating passenger fleet. More than 250 thousand drivers from all over Europe rely on Eurowag for their payment solutions. In 2016 Eurowag’s turnover exceeded 25 billion Crowns. On an annual basis, the company achieves longstanding growth of 25%.
Eurowag was set up in 1996. The company is based in Prague with regional representation in Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Macedonia, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania, Italy and Ukraine. Further information can be found on www.eurowag.com. Martin Vohánka, who founded the business and manages it to this day, has majority ownership of the company. In January 2016, 33% shares of W.A.G. payment solutions was acquired by American business TA Associates, one of the largest private investment companies in the world. More information about TA Associates can be found on www.ta.com.
