The Belarusian Transport and Communications Ministry may consider the possibility of introducing different road toll rates in Belarus that will depend on the compliance of vehicles with emission standards. The information was released by Head of the Central Office for Automobile Roads of the Transport and Communications Ministry Yevgeny Rokalo at the press conference held on 1 August to highlight the launch of the commercial operation of the digital road toll collection system BelToll in Belarus, BelTA has learned.

The possibility was considered when the legislation to regulate the procedure to collect road toll was put together, said the official. The regulations allow for possible differentiation of road toll rates further down the road depending on the emission standard of the vehicle. "But it cannot be done for now because most of the vehicles used by Belarusian residents do not have ecological passports," believes Yevgeny Rokalo. “Although we haven’t chosen to do so yet, we have left the matter open to consideration in the future,” said the official.

The digital road toll collection system BelToll went commercial on 1 August, with users billed for the passage along several motorways.

Belarus now has a total of 815km of toll roads. Initially the toll roads include the entire length of M1/E30 motorway Brest (Kozlovichi) – Minsk – the Russian border (Redki) and some sections of the motorways M2 Minsk – the National Airport Minsk, M3 Minsk-Vitebsk, M4 Minsk-Mogilev, M5/E271 Minsk-Gomel, and M6/E28 Minsk – Grodno – the Polish border (Bruzgi).

The road toll for the passage along Belarusian motorways varies from €0.04 to €0.12 per 1km depending on the total admissible weight of the vehicle and the number of axles.

In line with Belarus president decree No. 426 of 27 September 2012 vehicles registered in the Customs Union member states (Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan) with the admissible total weight of 3.5 tonnes and less are exempt from road toll. Free passage is granted to scooters and motorbikes, wheeled tractors and self-propelled vehicles, emergency vehicles, and vehicles used for defense and law enforcement purposes. Road toll is not applicable to private buses used for urban passenger transportation, vehicles used for emergency medical aid, mitigation of emergencies or the transportation of humanitarian cargoes.

The digital road toll collection system went online on 1 July 2013 in test mode. The system is built around a specialized short-range radio communication technology that allows making transactions without having to stop users.