Since April 1st 2016, the three regional toll domains for trucks over 3.5 tons have come into effect in Belgium. Starting at that date, all trucks having a Gross Vehicle Weight of over 3.5 tons must be equipped with an On Board Unit (OBU) which is constantly switched on when they are driving the public roads. This OBU will register the kilometers driven and will calculate the toll (Kilometer Charge) that is due. The OBU can be ordered at the service providers of the Kilometer Charge.
Satellic is the national service provider for Belgium. Operating the VIAPASS system was part of the public offer of the DBFMO contract that was won by Satellic. By this contract the company didn’t only have to design and build the infrastructure of the toll system (compliance and toll charging), but also had to prefinance it. Since April 2016 Satellic is accordingly a service provider, together with the other accredited service providers.
The kilometer charge is levied by the toll authorities, namely the Brussels-Capital Region, the Flemish Region and the Walloon concessionaire Sofico. These toll authorities, in compliance with the European Directive 2004/52 / EC of April 29 2004 and in the European Decision 2009/750 EC of October 6, 2009 offer a free access to all prospective suppliers of electronic toll collection in the European Economic Area prior to certain criteria, avoiding any monopoly. This way, the electronic toll in Belgium is built according the the European Electronic Toll System developed by the European authorities.
The service providers will be admitted to the system of electronic toll collection in Belgium when they comply with all the technical specifications of the three regional toll domains as stated in the so-called “EETS Domain Statements”. These include the requirements for accuracy of measurement of the OBUs installed in the trucks on toll roads, communication with law enforcement
Even before the formal announcement of the toll domain declarations by the regions, Viapass, the coordinating and controlling government agency for the kilometer charge, has informed as soon as possible all interested service providers of the necessary technical requirements to get access to the market of electronic tolling in the toll domains of Belgium.
The specifications of the requirements for new service providers are specified in the toll domain statements, which are the official documents in which the technical and other requirements will be officially published by the toll-charging agencies. For each toll domain such a toll domain statement needs to be published. You can find the toll domain statements for the regions here.
For the Liefkenshoektunnel, you can find the statement here.
EETS register
Of course, the original EETS register in which the countries of the European Economic Area need to record the current status in their toll areas, has been adapted according the introduction of the toll (ie. from 1/04/2016). You will find this EETS register here.
Accreditation
A number of potential service providers have already called Viapass to be registered and / or accepted in order to offer electronic toll collection services in the Belgian toll domains. This process involves several stages: the signing of an LOI (Letter Of Intent) where the parties declare to work together for the testing and the entry of the potential service provider to the toll areas, in which stage confidential information can be exchanged in a secure way, registering the potential service provider (registration in their home country or in Belgium), the actual testing of the system of the service provider and finally the acceptance to provide electronic toll services in the Belgian toll domains.
Here you can track the status and progress of this process of the (potential) service providers, listed in alphabetical order:
| Organization | L.O.I. | Registered | Tests started | Tests successfully finalized | Accredition |
| Axxes | signed | OK (FR) | 1, 2, 3, 4 (of 4) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Accredited |
| End of operations on 31/12/2023 | |||||
| Accreditation process stopped | |||||
| Telepass S.p.A | signed | OK (IT) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Accredited |
| Tolltickets GmbH | signed | OK (GER) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3 | |
| Toll4Europe GmbH | signed | OK (GER) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Accredited |
| TotalEnergies Marketing Services | signed | OK (FR) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Accredited |
| W.A.G. Payment Solutions a.g. | signed | OK (CZ) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Accredited |
