Another 19 kilometres of motorways near cities will be toll-free starting from next year7/9/2017|Press releasesStarting on January 1, 2018, the Ministry of Transport will exempt from fees another five motorway sections that constitute city by-passes or through which category I roads pass. These include for example motorways around Olomouc, Otrokovice, Pohořelice or Sokolov. This way, the Ministry of Transport follows its decision from the past years when 145 km of motorways situated near cities were excluded from charges. "In the past two years, this step has proven to be successful. The mayors of the cities affected are very satisfied with it, because it has helped calm down the transportation in cities. Therefore, we continue this trend. Motorways are structures paid from taxpayers' money, so they should serve as many people as possible," says the Transport Minister Dan Ťok. Next year, the Ministry of Transport will cancel the obligation of the motorway sticker on five other sections of national highways, with a total length of 19 kilometres. To be specific, it is a 10-kilometre section of the D6 between Nové Sedlo and Březová and a 3-km section of the D52 by Pohořelice will also now be free of charge. Drivers will not need the motorway sticker in the D55 section near Otrokovice, on the D3 motorway between Veselí nad Lužnicí and Bošilec and on the D46 motorway by Hněvotín. By exempting this section, drivers will be able to use the Olomouc bypass on the D35 motorway free of charge. In the past, sections of the D1 around Brno, the D3 motorway around Tábor, the D6 near Cheb and the D10 around Mladá Boleslav were exempt from charges. In the next wave, we enabled free-of-charge access to Prague for the inhabitants of surrounding municipalities near Prague, i.e. sections on the D6, D7, D10 and D11. Beroun and Králův Dvůr on the D5 were also added to city bypasses where no fees apply. Also the motorway around Pilsen and around Ústí nad Labem on the D8 are free of charge. Another similar section is by Olomouc and on the D35 or D46 motorway around Prostějov. "These changes did not show in any way in the sales of motorway stickers – on the contrary, their sales have been rising every year. In 2014, when no section was excluded from the fees, a total of 4,700,000 motorway stickers were sold and in 2016 it was nearly six hundred thousand more," adds minister Ťok. The exemption of these sections from charges did not translate into the sales of the motorway stickers in any way. On the contrary, annual sales and returns from them have been constantly rising. Last year CZK 3.6 billion were collected, which is CZK 170 million more than in 2015 and 300 million more than in 2014. The sales of one-year motorway coupons for 2018 for weight category up to 3.5 tonnes will start no later than on December 1. Coupons with a validity period of one month or ten days will be available for sale with the arrival of the new year. Coupon prices for 2018 remain the same as this year. The one-year coupon for 2018 is valid from December 1, 2017 to January 31, 2019, and its price is CZK 1,500. The price of the one-month coupon is CZK 440 and the price of the 10-day coupon is CZK 310. New motorway stickers will again be provided with security features due to their increased counterfeit protection. Overview of charge-free motorway sections from next year: D3 Veselí nad Lužnicí, south – Bošilec (km 107 - 109) D6 Nové Sedlo – Březová (km 136 - 146) D46 Hněvotín – Olomouc, Slavonín (km 37 - 39) D52 Pohořelice (km 23 - 26) D55 Otrokovice (km 30 - 32)