Satellic: the first 100 days

Just 100 days after the launch of the kilometre charging for trucks in Belgium, Satellic makes a first assessment on this launch period and asks several stakeholders about their perception.

On the 800,000 OBUs produced in order to answer the potential demand from the market, about 600,000 are now distributed to users in Belgium and abroad. Nowadays, between 130,000 and 140,000 equipped vehicles drive on the Belgian road network each day.

Rudolf Pospischil, CEO Satellic: « After a difficult start, we receive a lot of positive feedback from the users and transport federations about the improvement of our service. We accomplished our mission and managed to build a state-of-the-art tolling system in a record time. »

The system finds its supporters among major players of the sector having a wide experience of this kind of project. DKV, European specialist in the service to transporters, was a privileged observer of several launches of toll systems in Europe. According to Jürgen Steinmeyer, Director of Toll of the German company, « from our point of view, and with the experience we have of such implementations, we may say that the launch of the kilometre charging system in Belgium can be considered as a success ». Saying this, he agrees with Jérôme Lejeune, CEO of the French road equipment manufacturer Axxès – direct competitor of Satellic –, who stated in Le Soir on April 8th that « the technological challenge was huge for Satellic as a whole system had to be created from scratch [1] » and he « is glad that the three Regions managed to stick to their political will to implement this environment-friendly tax in spite of the numerous oppositions [2] ».

After the technical challenge of installing a whole system from scratch in less than two years, Satellic wants to go on providing all the users with an affordable quality service. Satellic is the only operator to offer the possibility to pay the toll and nothing else and to get a wide range of services at no extra charge.  

Built for being upgradable and for answering the requests of both the Regions and the users, the system is in continuous development and improvement.

Last weekend, a new release of the software has been deployed bringing extra user-friendliness for everyone:

• Trip visualization on maps offered at no charge on the Road User Portal for helping the users optimizing their journeys.
• Possibility to directly choose a business partner of Satellic as guaranteed payment mean for a new OBU for the users already using this partner’s services.
• Thanks to the Switch On OBU Reminder function, the driver is reminded to switch on the OBU by a flashing display and continuous beeping whenever a journey starts.
• Automatized process for the refund of both the deposit and the credit on prepaid OBUs in order to make it faster.
• Easier OBU coupling and decoupling process for the user, including when on the road.

By doing this, Satellic wants to address the main requests expressed by the users, company owners, drivers or individuals having vehicles subject to the toll. It is Satellic’s mission to improve its service to its customers continuously.

[1] « le défi technologique était de taille pour Satellic car il fallait créer le système de toutes pièces »
[2] « se réjouir surtout que les trois Régions soient parvenues à maintenir leur volonté politique d’instaurer cette taxe écologique en dépit des nombreuses oppositions. »