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Reprieve for Toll Coiled
Page 12
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THE GERMAN government has backed down on its threat to cancel the contract with Toll Collect after the truck toll operator promised to have the controversial system up and running by the end of the year.
Last December, German transport minister Manfred Stolphe threatened to terminate the agreement with Toll Collect — a consortium comprising DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Telekom and the French tolling operator Cofiroute — following a series of delays to the toll's launch. Following emergency talks last month, however, it gave the consortium until 31 January to produce a new schedule (CM 8 January 2004).
A spokesman for Toll Collect confirms that it has now agreed to a new timetable, explaining: "We have offered to have a version of the toll without GSM mobile updates running by 31 December, and then to have an updated system fully functional by 2005."
However, the German government will still be seeking compensation for the delays, which it estimates have cost it €156m (£.106m) a month in lost revenue.