The state settles phase 1 with the general contractor of the toll system, Kapsch
"We have settled the matter of some backlogs of the toll system detected upon its hand-over and subsequently during its trial operation. With regard to the conclusions and recommendations of the expert institute invited, the penalisation of the general contractor, the Kapsch consortium, amounts to CZK 121 million. At the same time, we have managed to agree upon a discount on the work's final price amounting to a further CZK 50 million. Both figures only relate to the 1st phase of the construction of the toll system in the Czech Republic," says Martina Vápeníková, spokesperson of the Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic (RSD), the operator of the toll system.
After more than two years of the toll system's operation, the RSD submitted to the Ministry of Transport a proposal for settlement of the construction of the 1st phase of the toll system. After having carried out a thorough analysis, the Ministry of Transport assigned the presented materials for discussion by the Government of the Czech Republic. Following its session today, the Government gave consent to the issuance of the Record on total completion of the work.
The main problem of the project's implementation within the scope of the 1st phase was the shortened deadline for the construction. The winner of the tender for the toll system's supply, the Kapsch consortium, in its bid pledged to implement the work within 12 months, yet due to time delays concerning the tender's conclusion it was ultimately necessary to shorten this deadline by three months so as to be able to begin collecting the tolls on 1 January 2007, as originally planned. This was the main reason for the fact that upon the launch of the system the state recorded an increased number of defects and backlogs, which were then rectified over time by the contractor.
The penalty was assessed for the contractor in the cases when it got into delays with the deadlines set for rectification of the ascertained defects and backlogs. Such cases most frequently occurred in, for example, the area of ground shaping during installation of toll gates, which in some cases, due to bad weather conditions, were not placed into the initial condition in time. Another significant group of penalised items related to late delivery of documentation for the system and adjustment of the required functionality of web applications.
The Czech toll system has been in operation since 1 January 2007, and to date has collected from lorries over CZK 14 billion. On the basis of kilometres driven, subject to a charge are all lorries with the weight exceeding 12 tonnes driving on the 1,200 kilometres of motorways, high-speed roads and class 1 roads.
