On October 24, Minsk / Tatyana Ivanyuk - BELTA /. The construction of structures for the national electronic toll collection system for roads has begun in Belarus. This was announced today at a press conference dedicated to the Day of the Motorist and Road Worker by Yuri Masyuk, acting director of the Belavtodor department of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Belarus. He noted that the design documentation has been developed. "The production of special structures has begun, and the locations for their installation have been determined," said Yuri Masyuk. It is planned that at the beginning of the year, Belarusian specialists will install the necessary devices on certain sections of the Brest-Minsk M1/E30 highway. As previously reported, the heads of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus and the Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom AG signed an investment agreement at the beginning of 2012, which provides for the coverage of a 2.7 thousand km road network by the new system. According to the terms of the project, after each stage of equipment is commissioned by the investor, it is accepted into the ownership of Belarus. The national electronic toll collection system for roads in Belarus will be implemented in three stages. As a result, it will cover Belarusian highways of the first category. It is expected that in 2013, the system will start operating on the Brest-Minsk M1/E30, Minsk-Mogilev M4, and Minsk-Gomel M5 highways (on those sections where modernization has been carried out). The first stage of the program is scheduled until July of next year. The second is planned to be implemented by January 2014, and the third by the same month in 2015. The total investment in the project implementation is over 260 million euros. Tolls on Belarusian highways will be charged to drivers of trucks with a total permissible mass of more than 3.5 tons. For the heaviest trucks, a rate of 12 euro cents per kilometer is preliminarily considered. To travel on toll roads, it will be necessary to install compact on-board units, from which the toll will be collected. It is planned that the distribution of such devices will be free of charge, with users paying a deposit. When an on-board unit is issued to a user, information about the vehicle necessary for calculating the toll is recorded in it, and an advance payment for the toll is collected. The balance can be replenished at special service points as the deposited advance is depleted. -0-