January 3 (SeeNews) - Croatian state-owned motorways operator Hrvatske Autoceste (HAC) said on Friday it plans to invest more than 600 million kuna ($90 million/81 million euro) in 2020.
Since the better part of Croatia's motorways network has already been built, HAC's investment activities this year will be focused on continuing the construction of Corridor Vc and the beltway around the Adriatic town of Novi Vinodolski, as well as on maintenance works and raising the network's safety standards, the company said in a statement.
The Croatian section of European transport Corridor Vc is some 90 km long and, apart from the stretch north of Osijek, it is already complete. Corridor Vc will link the Hungarian capital Budapest with the Croatian Adriatic port of Ploce via Bosnia.
In 2020, HAC said it will also continue work on introducing a new toll payment system that will employ state-of the-art technologies based on Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) via reading a mobile device installed in cars and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR).
"This will significantly increase the throughput and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by congestion since while the manual toll payment has a capacity to process 200 vehicles per hour, the new system will allow up to 3,000 vehicles to pass through," the statement said.
At the same time, HAC has been undergoing a restructuring process aimed at reducing operational costs and cutting the number of employees.
(1 euro = 7.44666 kuna)