Berlin Hopes to Export Toll System

The German government hopes other countries will buy its state-of-the-art motorway toll system for trucks that was finally launched on January 1, a transport ministry spokesman said on Monday. Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands had all expressed interest in the highly sophisticated satellite-driven system, in which on-board-units (OBUs) track trucks' progress on the German Autobahn and charge for every kilometer traveled. The countries concerned would watch very closely to see how the system, developed by telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom and German-US automaker DaimlerChrysler fares in the start-up phase. "But what will be decisive is the second stage when the full system is up and running at the beginning of 2006," the spokesman said. Embarrassing delays, serious technical glitches and much public mud-slinging has dogged the system from the start which was originally planned to have been up and running in 2003. (AFP)