Satellic cleared in summary proceedings

Satellic, who collects toll on behalf of Viapass for the regions, was sued before  the Court of First Appeal in Brussels by 97 companies backed by UPTR. Their demand to postpone the billing until a court-appointed expert confirms the well-functioning of the system was rejected by the judge.

Satellic, the company that collects toll on behalf of Viapass for the three regions was brought to the Court of First Appeal last Monday May 2nd by 97 transport companies backed by UPTR (Union Professionel des Transporteurs Routiers). These companies required a postponement of the billing. The Court judges that the system is working properly and therefor the demand was rejected. The Court also insists on the fact that the issues brought to Court can be solved by simply contacting Satellic and that one should not come to Court for this.

In its judgement, the Court stresses that the transport companies were aware that the kilometre charging system for heavy good vehicles of over 3.5 tons would come into effect as of April 1st 2016. They were given six months, sufficient time, for getting acquainted to this system as the devices could be ordered and used since October 1st 2015.

Since October 1st last year more than 500.000 OBUs have been ordered of which meanwhile more than 430.000 are in use. On a working day, between 130,000 and 140,000 trucks over 3.5 tons are using the Belgian roads and are equipped with an OBU from Satellic. The fact that some 100 companies among those hundreds of thousands of users thought they should bring the case to Court does not outweigh the stability of the system as well as the correct functioning of it.

Margo Vermeiren, Head of Communication & Marketing at Satellic, adds: “Obviously Satellic does its utmost to offer to its customers a good service, and to support in case of issues. Since 2 weeks we notice a remarkable decline in the number of calls in the call center, indicating that the users got to know the system and learned to use it.”