Ljubljana - The national motorway company DARS and Slovakia's Skytoll signed a contract on Thursday to launch an e-tolling system for cars in Slovenia. Both sides will try to push forward the date of the launch so that drivers could start using the system on 1 December as was initially planned, DARS said.

Today's step has come after the National Review Commission rejected requests for a revision of the selection of Skytoll as the contractor.

The requests had been filed by both losing bidders, Slovenian telecoms company Iskratel, which submitted a joint offer with Hungary's ARH Informatics, and Slovenian IT firm Marand, which had a joint bid with the state-owned postal and telecoms operators and Austrian firm Kapsch.

Skytoll's bid was EUR 15.7 million excluding VAT, slightly higher than Iskratel's and under half the offer submitted by the Marand consortium. The rival bids were deemed inadmissible.

DARS said that the commission's decision had proved all procedures had been conducted transparently and in line with the law.

The system was initially supposed to be launched on 1 December, however the deadline rested on the date of signing the agreement. Since the revision has caused a three-month delay, the new deadlines will be a matter of discussion with the contractor, DARS said in a press release.

Skytoll will do all it can to push forward some of the project's deadlines in cooperation with DARS, so that the system could be set up by 1 December when users could already purchase their e-tolling subscriptions. The current annual tolling sticker or vignette will be valid until 31 January 2022.

The e-tolling system will maintain the current tolling format, meaning it will not be distance-based. What will be new is that the subscription will be valid for 12 months after the date of the purchase, instead of running out at the end of the year.

One could either purchase the subscription via an online app or at venues that have been selling the stickers. All vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tonnes could still choose between three categories of subscriptions, the annual, monthly or weekly, DARS said.