Setting of environmental category
Note to carriers: Rules pertaining to the specification of environmental protection categories to tighten in Hungary
Those concerned have one month to provide the expanded scope of mandatory registration data (make, year of manufacture, VIN number) in their HU-GO profile, and to upload the vehicle document stating the vehicle’s environmental category. The tightening primarily aims to improve the enforcement of the “polluter pays” principle.
The environmental protection category is one of the elements of determining the toll payable for road usage by goods motor vehicles with a gross weight of over 3.5 tonnes. Its specification—the correct provision of necessary data and the substantiation thereof with certified documentation—is an essential criterion of ensuring that toll on Hungarian roads is paid in line with the rate of environmental pollution and pollutant emissions for each goods motor vehicle.
“While in the case of goods motor vehicles with a Hungarian country code, NTPS Plc. is able to verify the environmental protection category in Hungarian public vehicle registers, this is currently not possible for vehicles with foreign country codes. The polluter »pays principle«, however, applies to all, which is why we have made it mandatory—pursuant to our General Terms and Conditions—to provide the expanded scope of mandatory registration data (make, year of manufacture, VIN number) and to upload the vehicle document stating the vehicle’s environmental category in the HU-GO profile,” said National Toll Payment Services Plc. (NTPS Plc.) CEO Tamás Bartal.
He went on to add: “We are asking foreign carriers to check—in the month ahead—whether they have provided the data as requested and uploaded the documents needed, and if they have not done so yet, to provide and upload these. We are also asking customers to delete vehicles that are no longer owned by them from their HU-GO profile. We are, of course, informing everyone of the above, both directly and indirectly.”
Detailed information pertaining to the environmental protection category is available on the hu-go.hu website, where the means of providing the aforementioned data and uploading documents is demonstrated in a tutorial video.
Goods motor vehicles with a foreign country code registered in the HU-GO system, for which the above obligations are not fulfilled by carriers will automatically be reclassified by NTPS Plc. into the lowest environmental protection category (Category “C”, “EURO 0” in the HU-GO system) as of 1 July 2021, and will be kept in this category until the carriers concerned remedy the deficiencies. Similar regulations are encountered frequently internationally as well, for example in Austria, the Czech Republic or Slovakia.
NTPS Plc.’s control system detects 120-130,000 goods motor vehicles with foreign country codes on Hungarian toll roads each month, and while most of these have already provided the mandatory data requested and uploaded the documents needed, the rule applies to all registered foreign vehicles.
Click on this guide to see how to modify vehicle data in your HU-GO profile.
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In case the copy of the vehicle registration certificate that you have uploaded does NOT contain any of the data verifying authenticity (make, year of manufacture, VIN number, Euro code of the vehicle), you can verify the validity of the data by uploading both the ECMT/CEMT licence and the vehicle registration certificate.
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Frenquently asked questions
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Tutorial video
As you may already know from 3 February 2019 there is a new data upload obligation in our HU-GO system. Now we are sharing a tutorial video in English that can help you to meet the emission classification data requirements on our renewed platform.
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Development of the e-toll system is on schedule
Last December NTPS Plc. launched its development programme to allow toll payment for heavy duty vehicles with a maximum gross weight of over 3.5 tonnes in the HU-GO system. The purpose of this programme is to identify incorrect registration of emission classes, allow for setting the correct emission category, and modernize toll collection.
Accordingly, as of 3 February 2019, when customers register goods motor vehicles with foreign registration numbers or modify their data in the electronic system, the vehicle make, year of manufacture, VIN number and emission class must be entered, and the document stating the vehicle’s environmental category must be uploaded to the hu-go.hu website.
According to the statistics of the National Toll Payment Services Plc., carriers have complied with this new requirement in 82,000 cases. The number of vehicles with foreign country codes was close to 72,000, while data of Hungarian vehicles were uploaded in 10,000 cases. This latter number indicates those who were not obliged to upload such data, yet they voluntarily helped NTPS Plc. by providing the information requested. NTPS Plc. can actually retrieve the above data for goods motor vehicles registered in Hungary from the Hungarian public vehicle registers.
Recently, NTPS Plc. recorded 76,000 goods motor vehicles equipped with on-board units per month on average, which figure suggests that the majority of foreigners using the Hungarian toll road network did comply with their data upload obligation. 90 percent of the 82,000 vehicles were registered in the system with EURO6 and EURO5 engines, the two categories with the lowest emission levels.
The changes do not affect vehicles using the vignette system. As a result of the most recent developments of the e-toll system scheduled for completion in the second half of 2019 the earliest, carriers of vehicles with a gross weight of over 3.5 tonnes will no longer be charged with multiple toll fines if the vehicle is registered for a wrong emission class.
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Changes in the Hungarian electronic toll system in 2019
The aim is to have correct settings for environmental category and to modernise control
The National Toll Payment Services Plc. (NTPS Plc.) has launched a development programme within the HU-GO system enabling toll payment for heavy-duty vehicles with a maximum authorised mass over 3.5 tonnes to identify incorrect environmental categories, and thereby improve control and modernise toll collection.
The individual elements of the comprehensive programme will be introduced on a continuous and gradual basis, and the related measures are expected to become complete in the second half of 2019 at the earliest. The first step is to include the emission classes of heavy-duty vehicles in a uniform and controlled database, followed by the introduction of the automatic and electronic setting and control of the environmental category, which complements the roadside inspection method of the organisations tasked with toll enforcement.
We are currently in the data upload phase of the programme. Since December 2018, all users can enter the new type of registration data (make, year of manufacture, VIN number, vehicle registration certificate) on the HU-GO.hu website. As of 3 February 2019, this information will be mandatory in the HU-GO system for customers registering vehicles with foreign country codes or modifying the data of already registered vehicles. Later, the upload will be mandatory for all HU-GO customers where the requested data are not available as required. We will also inform users about this novelty in good time.
The information requested during data uploading is required to verify that the environmental category entered by the customer is correct. While, for vehicles with foreign country codes, this information are uploaded to the HU-GO system by the user, for vehicles with Hungarian country code, this process is also facilitated by the central use of the Hungarian public vehicle registration data. In the case of heavy-duty vehicles with foreign country codes, the data upload obligation is explained by the lack of complete interoperability between the public vehicle registers of the respective countries.
The new type of enhanced control of the correctness of the environmental categories in Hungary may only begin after the validation of the uploaded data by NTPS Plc., i.e. in the second half of 2019 the earliest. From that time onward, in addition to imposing the toll fine, the HU-GO system will automatically rectify the incorrect environmental category and, at the same time, notify the customer, or, for customers who have not complied with their data upload obligation, the customer, in accordance with the EU Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (the “Eurovignette Directive”), will be required to pay the toll of the worst environmental category for the specific vehicle. In that case, the customer will continue to pay the toll for the worst environmental category until compliance with the correct data upload obligation for the specific heavy-duty vehicle.
The goal of NTPS Plc. is to contribute to the reduction of environmental load caused by heavy-duty vehicles, based on the “polluter pays” principle. Introducing the central setting service of the environmental classification can reduce the number of cases caused by incorrect environmental classification and resulting in cumulative fines. As a result of this step, toll collection becomes more accurate, and there may be less abuse related to the declaration of emission classes. The measure enhances fair competition within the carrier market and encourages law-abiding behaviour even more among players in the sector.
The control of environmental category is required by Hungarian legislation, in accordance with EU legislation and international practice. During the development process, NTPS Plc. always provides sufficient grace period and time to prepare for the carriers to learn about and apply the new measures and services.
