Hauliers await miracle of ‘online payment’ for Danube bridges

Lili Granitska, Mediapool, 18 January 2025

“This is the end. Customs officers are ‘starved to death’. We passed the Danube-bridge as a simple bridge over the Iskar. No queues, no crowds, no barriers, no live chicken.” This is what user Svetlana Petrova wrote on Facebook on January 5 and posted a video of the bridge crossing between Ruse and Giurgiu.

For cars, the payment of the bridge toll on the Bulgarian side can also be done online. This service was introduced by the Customs Agency as early as 5 July 2024. This puts us at least one chest ahead of Romania. From Giurgiu, this possibility is to be introduced in about 4 months, the Romanian road agency (CNAIR), which operates the facility, told Hotnews.

On the other bridge – “New Europe” – between Vidin and Calafat, online payment of the toll for cars will be introduced before the active tourist season – by May, the joint Bulgarian-Romanian company “Danube Bridge Vidin – Calafat” JSC told Mediapool. The company said that online payment for trucks is not planned for the time being.

However, the Customs Agency said it was working to introduce online payment of the bridge toll for trucks at the Ruse facility. Plans are for this to happen “as soon as possible”, but they could not give an exact date because the implementation of the project depends on other institutions and organisations.

Currently, Bulgarian and Romanian hauliers pay by card or cash at the booths of both facilities. They are demanding that online payment be introduced for trucks to cross the two bridges without stopping. This issue was left by the caretaker government for resolution by Rosen Zhelyazkov’s regular cabinet.

However, at the moment everything is calm on the two bridges over the Danube and there are no queues of trucks. Caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev prevented a “spoonful of tar“, to use his vocabulary, with the introduction of a “virtual queue” without the need for one at Ruse (A few days after Bulgaria completely joined the Schengen area, there were attempts that the trucks are prevented from going directly to the bridge and pushed by an identified private vehicle and its crew to wait at the parking next to the bridge, where they were to pay a tax and receive a pager, placing them in the so-called “virtual queue” of vehicles waiting for their turn to come to pass the bridge. At that moment Glavchev intervened in the situation, by saying that he would not allow “a spoonful of tar” to fall on Bulgaria’s full Schengen membership – translator’s note). 

The situation at the two facilities is different. On the bridge between Vidin and Calafat, there is no tension and the cars pass in less than a minute to pay the toll. However, this is not the case at the facility between Ruse and Giurgiu, where bridge repairs are ongoing and queues sometimes form at the exit from Bulgaria.

The upshot of Glavchev’s visit (in the beginning of January 2025 – translator’s note) is that to avoid a congestion of trucks in Ruse, the trucks are stopped at Byala and are not allowed into the Danube-side town between 4 and 6 pm so that people can go home safely after work, Lidiya Bogdanova, chairwoman of the board of the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Carriers, told Mediapool. This has practically eliminated the mandatory stop through “Tir Parking Ruse”. Now, only the tyres that want to take a break stop at the private parking lot.

“It is important for us that we are already in Schengen. An hour wait against the background of 20 – 30 hours, as it was before Schengen – we can swallow it,” Yordan Arabadzhiev, executive director of the Union of International Carriers, told Mediapool.

On the bridge “New Europe” everything is calm

The New Europe Bridge, which connects Vidin and Calafat, was put into operation in June 2013. It is managed by the Bulgarian-Romanian company Danube Bridge Vidin – Calafat AD.

The tolls paid by the crossers are the same on both sides of the border. For cars – 6 euro each way, for buses – 25 euro and for trucks over 12.5 tonnes – 37 euro. It is free for pedestrians and cyclists.

Payment of the toll can be made at a counter or via a POS terminal installed on the bridge, with over 60% of trucks paying by card.

An option is currently being developed through the company’s website for cars to pay the toll online. Plans are to make this option available before the active tourist season, Hristo Monev, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Danube Bridge Vidin – Calafat AD, told Mediapool.

In recent years there has been a steady trend of increasing traffic. In 2024, a total of more than 1.38 million vehicles passed through the New Europe Bridge (in both directions). Of these, 530,000 are passenger cars, according to data from Danube Bridge Vidin – Calafat AD.

Tension on the “Friendship Bridge”

And if everything is calm on the “New Europe” bridge and there are no queues so far, the same is not true for the first one – the “Friendship Bridge”, built more than 50 years ago between Bulgaria and Romania during socialism.

On 8 January 2025, repairs have resumed on the Bulgarian section of the bridge, which should be completed in the summer of 2026.

The organisation of the crossing of Friendship Bridge I is different from that of the second bridge. Here there is no joint management of the facility. Each country determines its own tolls and their collection.

On the Bulgarian side, the Customs Agency is responsible for collecting the bridge toll, and on the Romanian side, the Romanian road agency. For crossing the bridge on the Bulgarian side, the toll is €2 for a car and €37 for a lorry. On the Romanian side, the fee is higher for cars – €3 and the same for heavy trucks – €37.

It is left to the new Bulgarian government to decide whether the bridge toll for cars should be abolished and the toll for heavy goods vehicles raised to €40. It also has to decide on the online payment for trucks. This proposal was put forward by Ruse’s governor Dragomir Draganov under Dimitar Glavchev’s caretaker government, but he left the matter to his successor Rosen Zhelyazkov. The reason is that the decision on the “bridge” fee is linked to the adoption of the Budget 2025, which is currently unclear when it will happen.

“The online payment and abolition of the bridge toll for cars requires a decision of the Council of Ministers and the National Assembly. Some legal regulations dictated by our accession to Schengen must also be changed,” Draganov said.

Nearly 1.5 million cars have crossed the Friendship Bridge at the exit from Rousse in the direction of Romania, of which more than 920 000 are passenger cars, according to data from the Customs Agency.

Interesting facts

And an interesting fact is shown by the data of the Bulgarian authorities. On the Bulgarian side there are queues of trucks mainly at the Ruse exit, and on the Romanian side at the Calafat exit.

In 2024, more than 215,000 heavy goods vehicles over 12 tonnes left Bulgaria for Romania via Ruse, while 185,000 entered Bulgarian territory from Giurgiu.

At the bridge between Vidin and Calafat last year, 196,000 trucks entered Bulgaria from the Romanian side and 154,000 from Vidin to Romania.

The explanation is that the congestion at Ruse is due to the fact that the shortest route from the Capitan Andreevo BCP to Ruse is to cross our country. For this reason, Bulgaria insists on the launch of the ferry between Ruse and Giurgiu from 2022, but the Romanians are slow, the Bulgarian side claims.

On the other hand, trucks travelling from Western Europe prefer to pass through Vidin because it bypasses Serbia. The New Europe Bridge is mainly used by Bulgarian (44%), Turkish (20%), Romanian (13%), Polish (9%), German (3%) and Hungarian (3%) hauliers, according to data from the joint Bulgarian-Romanian company.

Photo: The New Europe bridge at Vidin-Calafat (source: Pixabay, CC0)

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