The National Road Transport Agency (RDW) is opening a new office in Groningen where 150 employees are responsible for toll collection.
The toll office will do the registration and administration of the truck tax and the toll tax on two road routes elsewhere in the country. The new department will be located in a building next to the existing building where RDW already has an IT department on the A7 near Hoogkerk.
RDW does not carry out the new activities in Veendam. In the long term, the building there will be too small for the expected 150 new employees. “That is why we started looking for a new home in the Northern Netherlands,” said an RDW spokesperson. The office in Groningen will be opened on December 6 by King’s Commissioner René Paas.
Truck tax and e-TOL are two new ways in which the government wants to tax driving. From 2024, the government will charge tolls on the new Blankenburg connection in Rotterdam and the future ViA15 highway in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region. The intention is that the toll will generate extra money so that the roads can be built faster.
Tolls will end in 2030
The government has indicated that toll collection on these routes will end in 2030, because road pricing will be introduced by then. At least, if the next government continues road pricing. A final decision on this has been passed on to the next government.
The truck tax may come into effect in 2026. The intention is that transport companies pay for every kilometer they travel on the highway. There is a chance that freight traffic will choose shortcuts. That is why the levy also applies to a number of provincial N-roads and municipal roads.
Cameras above the road record the license plates of passing road traffic. Toll gates, barriers or separate boxes in a car are not necessary: the road user can continue driving straight away. Payment is made via a subscription or by a one-off payment in advance or afterwards. The amount for a toll passage has not yet been determined.