The kilometre tax must apply to everyone!

There are some points in the government proposal which will directly affect this business. It proposes a fee for wear and tear of the road, or a kilometre tax, which will be introduced for heavy vehicles and this worry Swedish hauliers that drive long distances every year. 

Unfortunately, I believe this will hit the Swedish industry in general and the rural areas in particular. There are not really any alternatives to transports by road in these areas.

A fee of 1 to 2 Swedish kronor per kilometres is what the government is suggesting in the proposal. The government hopes to obtain between 3.5 and 4 billion Swedish kronor a year.   

That money will be used for other infrastructure. Mainly railroad. In theory, this sound very good. But will it be fair this time? Will all hauliers be affected? Or will some of them be spared and will therefore be able to continue on competing with price dumping.

The proposal of the kilometre tax states that there will be different fees for different parts of the country. In the metropolitan areas the fee will be higher and lower in the rural areas. Consideration will be given to whether the trucks have environmentally-friendly engines or if there is no alternative to transport by road in the area.     

I think this is quite in order. But the big question is whether the foreign registered vehicles will be spared this fee the same way they are spared the congestion charge. In that case, the competition will be really skewed.

For example, a Swedish haulier with about 80 trucks drives around 8 500 000 kilometres yearly which in turn means close to 20 million Swedish kronor in additional costs. If this haulier was to continue competing with large, foreign companies, which are also spared the fee, it wouldn’t take long before it was time to close down the business.  

Thomas Ström
Founder and CEO of NTEX