Do you drive in France? Watch out for barrier-free toll roads

Watch out to not neglect to pay: motorists must arrange themselves in the event that they need to keep away from a tremendous to take the A79, the primary toll motorway with out a toll barrier in France, which opens Friday in Allier (middle).

Having existed for a very long time in a number of nations, any such ‘free-flow’ motorway is about to turn out to be widespread in France within the coming years. The Normandy Autoroute can be subsequent on the listing. A motorway in Haute-Savoie can be on the listing.

Customers will be capable of journey on the licensed velocity, with out slowing down or stopping, passing underneath gates outfitted with cameras and sensors that can determine their car.

They may then have a number of methods to pay, explains Pierre Méau, deputy buyer director of Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône (APRR). The group has remodeled 88 km of nationwide N79 – harmful, however free – into the A79 motorway – toll – between Montmarault (Allier) and Digoin (Saône-et-Loire).

A number of methods to pay

The best answer is to acquire a traditional digital toll badge, whatever the provider. You may as well pay on the location of the brand new motorway, both by registering your registration quantity and financial institution particulars as soon as and for all, or by paying for every passage. Final chance: 16 terminals alongside the freeway, which is able to help you pay by card or money.

‘The shopper has 72 hours to pay for his journey’, factors out Mr. Méau. In any other case a tremendous of 90 euros can be added to the quantity of the toll, and even 375 euros with out cost inside 60 days. The operator may have entry to the file of European registration plates.

Going hand in hand with the event of digital and on-line funds, the adoption of free circulate was requested by the French State when it chosen APRR (a subsidiary of Eiffage) to construct the A79. All new motorways will comply with this mannequin like the longer term A69 between Toulouse and Castres, notes the supervisor.

From South Africa to Portugal

The system is kind of widespread in lots of nations, between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa, round Toronto in Canada, on the city highways of Santiago-de-Chile, in lots of American states, on the Autostrada pedemontana lombarda close to Milan , in Italy, on many roads in Norway, on half of the Portuguese motorways or to enter Gothenburg or Stockholm in Sweden.

In France, the Société des Autoroutes du Nord et de l’Est de la France (Sanef) remodeled the Boulay-Moselle interchange on the A4 motorway right into a laboratory, eradicating the bodily limitations there in 2019.

Regardless of a number of incidents initially, ‘the system has demonstrated its reliability and prospects have turn out to be aware of this new cost system’, assures its managing director Arnaud Quemard.

Sanef has due to this fact undertaken to transform the Normandy motorway, which sees 32,000 vehicles a day, to free circulate.

“On the A13 and A14 between Paris and Caen, there are 5 limitations, with pretty sturdy commuting site visitors and vital weekend peaks. At every toll barrier, it’s a cease with probably site visitors jams, ”explains Mr. Quemard.

These limitations can be step by step changed by gates between mid-2024 and mid-2025. ‘The target is to straighten the motorway’, by returning to nature 28 hectares – the equal of 40 soccer fields – at the moment occupied by toll stations, he specifies.

Fewer site visitors jams, much less air pollution

Arnaud Quemard guarantees time financial savings, gas financial savings and reductions in CO2 emissions into the ambiance. The funding is valued at round 120 million euros, partly coated by a modest annual improve in tolls. However opposite to what one would possibly assume, switching to free circulate doesn’t lower your expenses.

‘Right now, on the toll in Normandy, we’ve got round 150 staff. To function the identical freeway in free circulate, we’ll want about 300’, which is able to primarily take care of buyer relations, says Mr. Quemard.

‘Now we have an enormous stake within the retraining of our workers, and we’ve got assured to all our toll staff that we are going to discover appropriate employment for them’, he underlines.

Among the many subsequent motorways to modify to free circulate, the Autoroute blanche (A40) in Haute-Savoie, which the corporate Autoroutes et tunnel du Mont-Blanc (ATMB) intends to transform ‘within the medium time period’, citing the standard of the highway as the rationale air within the Arve valley.

/ATS