New Year brings lower toll rates on A4 Katowice-Kraków motorway

This Wednesday, 1 January 2020, the preferential toll rates for A4 Katowice-Kraków for drivers using automatic payment methods will come into force. Autopay, A4Go and Telepass users will save from 3 to 5 zlotys on each toll gate, depending on the vehicle category. The toll rate for passenger cars will go down by 30 percent.

From the New Year at least until 31 March 2020, drivers who pay for the concession section of A4 using the system of vehicle registration plate reading (videotolling) or on-board unit will not only save time. Passing each toll gate will also pay off money-wise. When it comes to automatic payments, the toll rates  will be similar to those that applied to A4 Katowice-Kraków motorway ten years ago and will amount to 7 zlotys for category 1 vehicles, 17 zlotys for category 2 and 3 vehicles, and 30 zlotys for category 4 and 5 vehicles. In case of electronic toll collection - A4Go and Telepass - preferential toll rates will apply to new top-ups processed from 1 January 2020. A4 impulses purchased at a cheaper price, regardless of the preferential price list duration, will remain valid for two years.

- The drivers who have already come round to modern payment methods, appreciate the comfort of instant transactions and the lack of queues at toll gates intended for automatic payments. Dissemination of automatic payment methods is the best and only way to significantly reduce the time spent at toll plazas, especially during heavy traffic. It is planned to increase the number of toll gates intended for automatic payments, provided that they become more popular among the users. We hope that the possibility of travelling on our motorway faster, more conveniently and, since the New Year, also at a much cheaper price, will encourage more drivers to install a free Autopay application in their phones related to videotolling or to choose electronic toll collection A4Go or Telepass - says Rafał Czechowski, Stalexport Autostrada Małopolska S.A. spokesperson.

Paying with a registration plate - the simplest of the cheapest

Drivers who use A4 motorway Katowice-Kraków only occasionally, on weekends or holidays, as well as those who use it more frequently, for example when commuting to work, can use videotolling - method of payment based on the identification of the vehicle registration plate. The journeys are paid for via Autopay application, which allows you to register the vehicle in the database and link the registration number with a credit or debit card. Cameras on the toll gates read the registration plate and the system raises the barrier immediately. Three gateways dedicated to this form of payment, marked with the symbol of a black camera on a yellow background, available in every toll plaza ensure fast passage, even during periods of heavy traffic. The same application can also be used for the concession section of the A1 motorway.

A4Go - prepaid and full control of travel costs

To the regular users of the motorway, including fleet owners, the concessionaire offers an electronic toll collection system (A4Go) based on the on-board unit installed on the windscreen of the vehicle. The system communicates with the antenna at the highway toll gate - the barrier is raised after the vehicle is assigned a category, and the history of the journey and transaction can be tracked in real time through the Internet user account. The user pays in advance for the appropriate number of impulses corresponding to the number of journeys through the toll plazas. At the moment, A4Go is as a prepayment method, i.e.  prepaid, and there are plans to extend this solution with a postpaid formula, i.e. to connect the on-board device with a bank card charged after passing through a toll gate.

To maximize the efficiency of automatic payments, the A4Go, Autopay and Telepass users are exclusively dedicated a leftmost orange toll gate on each toll plaza, which ensures three times higher throughput.

Information on automatic payments and preferential toll rates can be found on the website: www.automatycznaA4.pl