Ljubljana - Slovakia's Skytoll has been selected to set up a system for electronic tolling of cars, which is to become operational in December, the state-run motorway company DARS said on Friday. Skytoll offered to set up the system for EUR 15.7 million and its bid was the only one meeting the criteria. Appeals are still possible.

Skytoll was one of the three bidders responding to DARS's call for bids.

Slovenian company Iskratel in partnership with Hungarian ARH Informatics offered to put the system in place at the cost of EUR 14 million, and a group of the Slovenian telecoms provider Telekom Slovenije, postal company Pošta Slovenije, ICT company Marand, in partnership with Austria's Kapsch bid at EUR 33.4 million.

DARS said today the remaining two bids did not meet the criteria from the tender. The decision to pick Skytoll was confirmed by DARS supervisors today.

The legal basis for the introduction of e-vignettes was passed by the National Assembly in late October in the form of an amendment to the motorway tolling act.

The new system will involve cameras recording car registration plates and the DARS surveillance mechanisms will monitor who has paid for the vignette and who has not. When they have, the data will be erased immediately, if not, they will be erased at the end of the fining procedure.

Slovenia currently has annual, monthly and weekly toll stickers for cars, and annual, six-month or weekly toll stickers for motorbikes. The toll sticker system was put in place in 2008.

These categories will remain unchanged, the difference to the current system being that electronic vignettes will be valid from the day of purchase for the designated period. The current annual physical stickers are valid up to 31 January following the year they are valid for.

The purchase of e-tolling stickers will be possible via a mobile app, online or at service stations. The Infrastructure Ministry says the prices should remain the same. The annual sticker for cars is now EUR 110, the monthly EUR 30 and the weekly EUR 15.

Electronic tolling of lorries has been in place since April 2018, but using a different system, based on the number of kilometres driven on motorways.

Skytoll also set up a system for electronic tolling in Slovakia in 2010 and has been running it since. However, according to the newspaper Dnevnik recent revelations regarding the company are raising doubts about its references and credibility.

The Slovakian review commission reportedly found the system set by Skytoll as uneconomical and inefficient. Skytoll reportedly keeps almost half of the revenue from tolls, and the project turned out to be much more expensive than initially said.

Skytoll responded to Dnevnik's reports from last week, saying the company guaranteed it could set up the system at the price stated in its bid and that any doubts about this were unjustified. CEO Matej Okali said its system also guaranteed minimal operating costs.