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Berlin, 25 April 2019. Dr Michael Blum and Volker Schneble will manage the operating company that will collect Germany’s infrastructure charge for passenger vehicles (‘car toll’). They were appointed by the company’s shareholders, CTS EVENTIM and Kapsch TrafficCom. Both Managing Directors have extensive management experience in toll and traffic telematics projects.
Dr Michael Blum has worked for over 20 years on innovative solutions in various companies in the mobility, infrastructure, consulting, and IT sectors. Until mid-April, he worked for Toll Collect for seven years, where he was head of corporate and product strategy, sales, and public affairs. Between 2007 and 2011, he headed the Berlin office of Dornier Consulting, a consultancy specializing in mobility, before which he had worked as a management consultant, and as managing partner of a medium-sized family-owned business.
Volker Schneble began his career at international technology and consulting companies in Switzerland and the U.S. Since 2005, the commercial lawyer and economics graduate has been working on intelligent transport solutions, initially as a research assistant in the German Bundestag. In 2012, he moved to the Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom, a leading international provider of intelligent traffic systems, where he was head of sales in Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and was most recently Managing Director in charge of the German market. Under his leadership, Kapsch won two of the largest contracts in the company’s history to date: the stationary control/monitoring and collection of the infrastructure charge.
In the months ahead, Dr Michael Blum and Volker Schneble will press ahead with the development of the operating company. Together with their teams, they will successively take over the tasks that have been carried out since the end of 2018 under the lead management of the joint venture partners, CTS EVENTIM and Kapsch TrafficCom.
The project partners seek to make all processes as intuitive, automated, and efficient as possible for both German and foreign users. The operating company’s digital approach is reflected, among other things, in the fact that the vignette for Germany will be a purely electronic solution.
The infrastructure charge commission was finally awarded to the consortium consisting of CTS EVENTIM and Kapsch TrafficCom on December 30, 2018 in the course of an EU-wide tender by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. As Europe’s leading ticketing company, CTS EVENTIM is contributing its expertise to a new business segment on a large scale for the first time. Kapsch TrafficCom has many years of experience with toll projects in more than 50 countries.
The collaboration between the German government and the operating company has a term of at least twelve years from the introduction of the infrastructure charge as of 1 October 2020. The principal has the option of extending the contract once for a three-year period or three times for a one-year period (i.e., up to a total term of 15 years). Revenues from the infrastructure charge are specifically designated for investment in the traffic infrastructure.
About CTS EVENTIM
CTS EVENTIM is one of the leading international providers of Ticketing and Live Entertainment. In 2018, approx. 250 million tickets were marketed using the company’s systems – through stationary box offices, online or mobile. Its online portals operate under brands such as eventim.de, oeticket.com, ticketcorner.ch, ticketone.it, and entradas.com. The EVENTIM Group also includes many concert, tour and festival promoter companies for events like ‘Rock am Ring’, ‘Rock im Park’, ‘Hurricane’, ‘Southside’, and ‘Lucca Summer’. In addition, some of Europe’s most renowned venues are operated by CTS EVENTIM, for example the LANXESS arena in Cologne, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the EVENTIM Apollo in London. CTS EVENTIM AG & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE 0005470306) has been listed on the stock exchange since 2000 and is currently a member of the SDAX segment. In 2018, its 3,141-strong workforce generated more than 1.2 billion Euros in revenue in 21 countries.
About Kapsch TrafficCom
Kapsch TrafficCom is a provider of intelligent transportation systems in the fields of tolling, traffic management, smart urban mobility, traffic safety and security, and connected vehicles. As a one-stop solutions provider, Kapsch TrafficCom offers end-to-end solutions covering the entire value creation chain of its customers, from components and design to the implementation and operation of systems. The mobility solutions supplied by Kapsch TrafficCom help make road traffic safer and more reliable, efficient, and comfortable in urban areas and on highways alike while helping to reduce pollution.
Kapsch TrafficCom is an internationally renowned provider of intelligent transportation systems thanks to the many projects it has brought to successful fruition in more than 50 countries around the globe. As part of the Kapsch Group, Kapsch TrafficCom has subsidiaries and branches in more than 30 countries. It has been listed in the Prime Market of the Vienna Stock Exchange since 2007 (ticker symbol: KTCG). Kapsch TrafficCom currently has more than 5,200 employees, and generated revenue of approximately EUR 693.3 million in fiscal year 2017/18.
