Visitors to France who are planning to rent a vehicle should be aware of changes underway to remove toll booths on autoroutes. According to La Manche Libre, A79 in the Allier département, which runs more or less east-west from Digoin to Montmaurault, was the first to enter this new program , called "flux libre" or "free flow."
In 2024, the heavily traveled A13, connecting Paris to Caen, will no longer have toll booths to accept payment of tolls.
Here's how it will work, according to La Manche Libre:
The A13, which links Caen to Paris, is among the very next
freeways to be affected, as it is due to switch to free flow "from
2024", announces the Société des autoroutes du nord et de l'est de la
France (SANEF). Free-flow technology will enable users to use the
entire 210 km of freeway without stopping at any of the five current
toll booths, "thanks to gantries enabling vehicle detection and
identification without reducing speed".For subscribers to electronic toll collection, nothing will change: no
further action is required. Non-subscribers will either have to
register their license plate via a website or mobile application to
pay automatically after each journey, or pay after each journey via
the Internet or telephone.
The motivation is to reduce the time and fuel consumption associated with stopping to pay tolls en route. Once it is deployed throughout France, SANEF projects, per year:
- 1.7 million hours of driving saved
- 9.5 million liters of fuel saved
- 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide saved
It will be interesting to see how rental car companies implement flux libre. I thought readers might want to be aware of it so they can arrange to pay promptly and consequently avoid having to get rental car companies involved, with the associated surcharges.