The Public Procurement Office (ÚVO) on July 30 asked the Bratislava Regional Court to extend the deadline for it to respond to suits filed by the three bidders expelled from supplying the electronic toll collection system in Slovakia.
ÚVO is asking for another 15 days, or until August 25, spokesperson Helena Fialová told the TASR newswire.

“We have asked for an extension because it’s a demanding matter and a 15-day deadline that expires on August 11 is insufficient,” Fialová said.
Three consortia filed suit against the National Highway Company (NDS) for expelling them from the tender: Austrian firm Kapsch TrafficCom; Slovakpass, led by Italian company Autostrade; and ToSy, led by the Bratislava company Elektrovod Holding. ÚVO is reviewing the expulsion.
Source: SITA (Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports)

Slovakia’s Public Procurement Office (ÚVO) is to deliver its answers to the European Commission’s request for information pertaining to the electronic toll collection tender.

Italian-Austrian consortium Slovakpass led by the Italian highway company Autostrade, one of the expelled bidders, complained to the European Commission about its expulsion from the tender despite offering the lowest bid. ÚVO also received a new objection from the Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom, which is another expelled bidder.

The Austrian company filed its objection on July 11, after the NDS dismissed its request for correction. The ÚVO is currently deciding on the previous objection by Kapsch about alleged discrimination by the National Highway Company (NDS) while reviewing the bids. A decision is expected by July 25. The other two expelled bidders – Slovakpass and Slovak-Swiss ToSy – have not filed new appeals regarding the tender yet.

Eight companies originally submitted bids to supply an electronic toll collection service to the NDS, five of which were selected. Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny sees no reason to cancel the electronic toll collection tender, as the ÚVO rejected complaints from the three excluded candidates and is currently dealing with another objection.

Vážny also said the tender should not be cancelled although only the SanToll-Ibertax group, which submitted the highest bid, has remained in the game.

Source: SITA

The excluded SlovakPass consortium has set up a dedicated web-site to inform the public about the tender circumstances which have led to their exclusion:

http://www.transparent-tender.info

The most interesting passage from the site content is the following part:

“NDS wants to accept for a strategically utmost important project (the money for the national road infrastructure goes “through” the operator of the tolling system) a company which is an empty shell and whose owners are unknown!

See attached the list of IBERTAX shareholders. IBERTAX, together with Sanef, owns SanToll, the so far only remaining bidder in this tender (and the most expensive, too).

The two Cyprus based owners of IBERTAX are joint stock companies with bearer-shares. This means that nobody can control who the real owner(s) is (or are) or will be. Usually and understandably the national authorities in such tolling tenders want to assure very strict control on the ownership of the tolling operator.

Strangely enough, Siemens Austria alleged to know the “main” shareholder (Austrians weekly magazine “profil“, 26/2008, June 23rd 2008). In that connection it might be interesting to take a look back to Satways and its consortium partner ABN Amro ETC: here Siemens did not know even their consortium partner.

Media reported about J&T’s denial and later on confirmation of being involved in IBERTAX (in the past, in present and their wish to be involved in future too). We have no comments to that.”

Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly will announce she is axeing plans to use satellite technology to track cars and force their owners to pay for driving by the mile in an attempt to ease congestion.
The announcement is a huge victory for the Mirror and our columnist Richard Hammond, who led the No To The Toll Tax campaign.
He handed an anti-toll tax petition signed by 1.8 million people to outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair last year.
A senior Government source yesterday said a nationwide satellite tracking system was “no longer in our thinking.”
The source added: “We have listened to people’s concerns about the privacy of a nationwide tracking system. We have listened to people’s concerns about being forced to pay a toll instead of having a choice.
“But we still want to do something about the congestion on our motorways which as most people know is immensely frustrating.”
Richard said the news was a “great victory.” He added: “It just shows what ordinary motorists can do when get together and stand up to the Government.”
Ms Kelly will today say she wants a new study to look at converting most motorways in the country into four-lane roads by using the hard shoulder. The outside lane could then be used as a “toll lane” for drivers who are in a hurry and willing to pay extra to beat the traffic.
Or it could be reserved for cars that are carrying more than one person.
In a speech to road experts in London, Ms Kelly will say she believes converting most motorways into fourlane roads is by far the best option for increasing capacity on motorways.
The current hard shoulders will be replaced by “emergency refuges” every 500 metres to allow drivers with car trouble to pull out of the traffic. There has been a successful trial of hard-shoulder running on the M42 motorway near Birmingham.
During busy periods, the hard shoulder was used as an extra lane and the speed limit reduced to 50mph.
A feasibility study found congestion and vehicle emissions were reduced.
Rebecca Lush-Blum, from the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “The M42 trial that the government has been running has shown opening up the hard shoulder really does work.
“Congestion is down and traffic flows are smoother.
“But crucially, because the traffic goes down to 50 mph, air pollution went down, carbon emissions went down and accidents went down.”

Source: The Mirror

The Slovak-Swiss consortium ToSy.sk led by the company Elektrovod Holding Bratislava and the consortium headed by the Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom have confirmed they submitted bids in the tender to supply a complete electronic toll collection service in Slovakia by today’s deadline.
The consortium of the Italian highway company Autostrade per I’Italia S.p.A. Rome confirmed for the SITA newswire that it had offered technology based on a GPS system. The group of Ibertax Bratislava and SanToll Bratislava has not yet commented on its bid.
NDS spokesman Marcel Jánošík told that the procurer would make an announcement about the tender on March 13 at 14:00. The deadline to submit a bid expires at midnight. Eight companies applied for participation in the tender, which was announced by the National Highway Company.
Apart from the four above-mentioned entities, the Satways consortium was also selected, but ultimately decided not to submit its bid.
Another consortium that included Slovak Telekom, Satellic Traffic Management GmbH (an affiliate of T-Systems Enterprise Services GmbH), Siemens and ABN Amro Bank N.V. disintegrated when it failed to agree on the terms of the future shareholders’ agreement. Since then Siemens has become the technology supplier to the SanToll consortium, which is backed by the French company Sanef.
Electronic toll collection is to start functioning in Slovakia from January 1, 2009 for motor vehicles weighing over 3.5 tonnes. The toll will be charged on 2,400 kilometres of roads and highways. The selected provider is to supply the service based on the DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) system.

Source: SITA (Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports)

During the December 17th session of the Hungarian parliament the authorization for procurement of national  electronic truck tolling system has been withdrawn. This halts the ongoing tender, which has just passed shortlist selection over a month ago.

Source: MTI

The consortium led by French company Sanef (composed of Santoll and Ibertax) on November 26 submitted an official appeal against being excluded from the tender for installing electronic tolling on Slovak motorways. The appeal was delivered to the National Highway Company (NDS), which is supervising the process.

“We’ve also sent a copy of the appeal to the Public Procurement Office,” Sanef spokesperson Veronika Cukasová said.

It was reported on the iDoprava.sk website last week that “according to official unconfirmed information” only three consortiums have made it to the next round of the public tender – Satways (German-Dutch), Kapsch (Austria) and Slovakpass (Italy). According to the website, the remaining players have been disqualified due to incomplete or erroneous data and/or translation mistakes. The NDS has refused to comment.

Source: SITA (Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports)

Slovak national motorway company Národná dialničná spoločnost (NDS) made public conditions of a new tender to build an electronic toll collection system worth Sk 20 billion . 

    The first tender was cancelled on August 20th because of a high number of bidders and changes in technology terms. Investors may submit their bids by Oct. 4, and eight bids will be chosen for further consideration at the beginning of November. The NDS will assess, for instance, the entire project price or efficiency of the toll collection system on selected roads. Toll will be collected from buses and trucks above 3.5 tons on motorways, expressways roads and selected parallel roads. As of 2009, drivers will pay toll on about 2,400 kilometers of roads.

Source: SITA

Terms of a public tender to select a supplier and operator of an electronic highway toll collection system have been released by the National Highway Company (NDS) and are now publicly accessible in the EU official bulletin.

The tender covers the construction and operation of an electronic toll collection system for vehicles over 3.5 tons over a network of 2,435 km of roads. The NDS estimated the value of the project at SKK20 billion without VAT. The winning company will have a 14-year contract that includes building the new system within a year and then operating it for 13 more. A possible option could tack another five years on to the end of the contract.

Applications for participation in the tender should be submitted by July 27 and qualification materials should be in by August 30. Bids will be opened on December 7 of this year.

SANEF, Siemens, Slovak Telekom, Kapsch and consortium ToSy already have indicated interest in the tender.

Source: SITA (Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports)

As some months of operational experience on the Czech toll system has accumulated, Satellic has compiled the following list of facts:

– No Interoperability: The Czech system is not interoperable with other microwave systems 

– The current implementation deficiencies: majority of the gantries have been built without construction permits, majority of the gantries are equipped with a diesel generator (not a standard cable) 

– Environment in danger: The diesel leaks from the diesel generators and contaminates the ground waters – huge environmental issues 

– Contract changes after winning the project: The operator could only introduce the tolling system after having signed a secret annex to the contract giving it more time to introduce toll (by splitting the toll introduction into two phases – highways and 1st class roads) and lowering the recording quota of the system from 95% to 80%

– Unclarity from first moment: The operator has communicated that it will supply a hybrid system in the 2nd phase (a combination of microwave and satellite system), however not specifying any details. Recently, the Czech Government has stopped the 2nd phase due to the fact that the hybrid system is not economically feasible.