Motorway tolls for heavy goods vehicles will be more expensive depending on their CO2 emissions by 2030

Polluting heavy goods vehicles will pay more on the highways, but not immediately. According to a decree published on Sunday, December 31, toll rates will be modulated for trucks and coaches according to their level of pollution, which will however only apply at the end of the current motorway concessions, expected for the majority in the 2030s.

This text transposes a mandatory European directive taken in 2022, intended to encourage the use of less polluting vehicles. The measure will be applicable to vehicles for the transport of goods and people whose authorized total weight is greater than 3.5 tonnes.

Tolls “are modulated according to the carbon dioxide emissions class of the vehicle. The amplitude of this modulation is set by the specifications annexed to the concession contract”, it is written in the decree published in the Official Journal. A ministerial decree will set the classes of emissions and the amplitude of modulation for each of them.

Waiting for reference values

These tolls will also be increased by an “fee for external costs linked to air pollution due to traffic”. An order will specify the reference values, depending on the environmental performance of the vehicle, its technical characteristics and the suburban or interurban nature of the route taken. In fact, the measure does not concern concession contracts currently being executed and does not “only applies to future highway contracts”specifies the Ministry of Transport.

Transport constitutes the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in France, with heavy vehicles accounting for around a quarter of this item, according to official figures.