Transport: TollRo glitches, Italy–Spain rail service returns

TollRO launches with errors and threat of protests

Romania’s TollRO kilometre-based road tolling system went live on 1 October 2026 after several postponements (initially scheduled for the beginning of the year, then 1 July). The industry is making no secret of its irritation. UNTRR Secretary General Radu Dinescu did not mince his words about the system’s readiness: "It doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, what errors can it produce? The first thing is that, for it to work, you have to be able to open it" he told Știrile ProTV (29.09.2026). COTAR President Vasile Ştefănescu gave a similar assessment: "The system doesn’t work. A few carriers from our side tried to integrate with it and cannot log in" same source. Dinescu also calculated how long it takes just to issue a route ticket: "I ran a simulation and issuing a single ticket takes somewhere around five minutes. For 300 vehicles, that means approximately 1,500 minutes, or 25 hours" Știrile ProTV. Of 600 tests conducted by one company, 80% turned out to be incorrect, while the same route was charged at 144.42 lei on one occasion and 156.90 lei on another, the same article reports. The side effect: in Arad and Mehedinți, carriers drove around the bypasses at reduced speed in protest, demanding that penalties be postponed.

On LinkedIn, the industry is trying to prepare for this in a cool-headed manner. On launch day, E100 announced: "𝗧𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗥𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱. Romania has officially switched to a pay-per-kilometre road tolling system (...) Planning routes through Romania? Make sure your drivers and fleet are ready for the new system from day one." A few days earlier, route-calculation tool RouteCalc asked directly: "TollRo starts on 1 October. Are your transport rates ready? (...) This can help pricing, tendering and transport teams identify which routes are most affected and where transport rates may need to be reviewed."

Fuel is "knocking out" the industry — clash over subsidies on ZMPD’s Facebook page

At the same time as TollRO, Polish carriers are fighting their own battle — over diesel prices. Jan Buczek, president of the Employers’ Association "Transport i Logistyka Polska", warned in an interview with the Information Radio Agency: "The current rise in fuel prices is practically knocking us out in the corner we find ourselves in. We are unable to pass the rising costs on to customers" ZMPD on Facebook, 29.09.2026. Buczek also cited hard figures: "We fell from a 34% share of transport work in the European Union in 2024 to 20% in 2026" same source. An appeal for subsidies and a windfall tax on fuel companies’ excess profits was sent to the prime minister and president, but comments under ZMPD’s posts show that drivers’ and company owners’ patience is running out. Piotr Dymek did not hold back: "ZMPD, for years all you’ve known how to do is write letters..... the so-called carriers from the entire Euro-communist bloc still haven’t grown up enough to look after the interests of drivers and their companies..... what matters is that the contributions keep landing in the account.... that’s all you’re capable of" comment on Facebook. Mateusz Pasieka went further, pointing out that previous relief measures had not reduced net prices anyway, while the industry’s real problems were the grey market and competition from Ukraine: "The last time they introduced all those wonderful relief measures, wholesale net prices for carriers went up, so costs only increased, and what? Nobody cared. (...) You’d be better off dealing with the uncontrolled influx of carriers from Ukraine and the preferential treatment they receive, because Polish carriers have no way of competing with them" comment on Facebook. Kuba Sawicki summed it up briefly and bluntly: "Mr Buczek, maybe it’s time to get to work, because soon this transport industry will be in ruins" comment on Facebook.

Ukrainian carriers and empty kilometres — hot topics in the comments

The issue of competitive advantages at the border resurfaced in the same threads. Wasil Damian described a specific customs-clearance case: "Ukrainian AEO. I’ve been asking and writing about the problem for two months now. AEO vehicles from Ukraine wait 15 minutes to enter Poland. Polish vehicles stand in the queue for 5 days ..." comment on Facebook. On LinkedIn, meanwhile, a discussion under a post by Ary Aznavourian about Europe’s dependence on diesel (96% of trucks on EU roads run on diesel) turned towards empty running. Lasha Amashukeli, who works in the European road transport industry, added: "But based on my experience in the European road transport market, I would add another major margin killer: Empty kilometres. According to Eurostat, 21.8% of EU road-freight vehicle-kilometres were driven empty in 2025 (...) better backhaul matching and fleet utilization can sometimes protect a carrier's margin more effectively than trying to negotiate a few extra cents on the freight rate" LinkedIn. On the same day (1.10.2026), tendering platform Alpega published similar figures: "EU diesel prices have hit a new 2026 record with the average prices reaching €2.26 per litre, up 38% since February (...) Around 20% of road freight kilometres in the EU are driven empty."

Rail versus road: investment in Spain and the debate over intermodal integration

On the positive-news side, there is intermodal development. On 6 October, RailFreight.com reported: "Spain has signed 1.2 billion worth of port-rail (...) The Ministry of Transport has approved a financial programme that will mobilise nearly €2 billion to improve port accessibility in 2026." This fits into the broader debate opened on LinkedIn by logistics consultant Kris Kosmala, who asked whether there is room in Europe for another player integrating rail transport with ports, alongside MEDWAY, HHLA/METRANS and Hupac Group: "I have to preemptively say that multi-modal terminal operators and rail freight carriers tend to be separate businesses, so there are only a few examples for the integrated model in Europe (...) Is there [any] room for another company like those three to step onto the intermodal handling and transport stage in Europe?" LinkedIn. The topic also caught Polish attention — Przemysław Zemla corrected the Metrans network map in a comment: "Mistake at map: Wroclaw is „Cooperating terminal”" LinkedIn. Kosmala himself also recalled how demanding the industry is from an operational perspective: "minimum length of your train must be economically viable to you for every crossing considering the network access fees and terminal charges. No faking it with 20 wagons, 50 minimum, 70 even better" same source.

Transport rates under pressure on every front

Finally, a broader view of the market, because rates do not rise in a vacuum. Alpega consultant Alain-Fabrice Lavialle compiled data from all transport modes: "Road: European contract rates up ~9% year-on-year, diesel near 1.94 EUR/litre (+27% YoY), and ~502,000 driver positions still unfilled. Ocean: Asia-US West Coast spot rates up ~120% since mid-May; Asia-Europe still 15-20% above the 2019 baseline (...) Air: global rates up ~16% year-on-year in Q1 (...) Rail: firm pricing, with shippers loading available cars into peak season" LinkedIn. His conclusion gets to the heart of what the entire industry is talking about today: "The companies weathering this best aren't the ones with the biggest contracts. They're the ones who actually understand and regularly test their own cost structure." Lithuanian carrier Tautvydas Lukošius added a practitioner’s perspective: "I think the practical issue is that customers still expect transport prices to stay stable while almost every cost behind the truck keeps moving (...) Probably another reason why long fixed-rate agreements without a proper fuel adjustment mechanism are becoming harder to justify" LinkedIn.

Sentiment of the day

The mood in the TSL industry is clearly heated today, but not panicked — this is operational anger, not defeatism. In Romania, technical frustration with TollRO dominates (the system "doesn’t work", and 80% of tests are failing), along with a real threat of protests escalating if penalties are introduced. In Poland, the focus is on fuel costs and the feeling that industry organisations’ appeals to the government are not translating into concrete action — comments under ZMPD’s posts are more critical of the industry’s own representation than of the government, with recurring themes of Ukrainian competition and the grey market. On LinkedIn, the tone is cooler and more analytical — diesel, empty kilometres and cost pressure across all transport modes are presented as data, not emotion, but the conclusions align with what drivers are writing on Facebook: margins are being squeezed from every direction at once.

EU driver forums (trucker-forum.at, forum.soferdetir.ro) and Wykop.pl did not provide any fresh, clearly dated discussions about TollRO or freight rates today — discussions there move more slowly than on Facebook and LinkedIn, so they were omitted from the quotes.