crossing Austria with a Go-box

A go-box to cross Austria 26/06/2014

You need a go-box if the vehicle is over 3.5 tonnes, and a vignette costing €8 for 10 days if under 3.5 tonnes. I don’t think it is worth chancing it with the vignette and hoping you don’t get stopped and fined. The Austrians are efficient and are very likely to stop you and check your weight.

We were slow getting out of Germany in the end because our van started leaking water. It rained quite heavily overnight, and rain came in past the skylight seal and the dining seat and floor were wet. I mopped up half a washing up bowl of water. Thomas at the Berchtesgaden site office was very helpful, not only suggesting where to get it fixed, but phoning also, and getting us an appointment the following day at 0930. So we took a slight detour to the motorhome centre (very near Salzburg, but in Germany), to have the seal renewed, and did a bit of shopping at a superstore next door, while it was done. We found a badminton set and some table tennis bats and balls, as well as some tracksuit or jogging bottoms.

I also had to fix one of the van leg steadies, which had lost a pin...and yes I did use a bit of duct tape!

The van was ready after lunch and we set off through Austria with the go-box mounted on our windscreen, like this - it is a small blue box about the size of a pack of cigarettes

just above the level of the wipers on the driver’s side. When you go under the motorway gantries it bleeps a single shrill chirp to let you know you’ve been recognized and charged a small fee. There is a bar-code on the windscreen side that the camera reads as you go under it, and matches with your number plate; very clever really. It allows for traffic to flow without any stops to pay toll fees, and the roads must be incredibly difficult and expensive to build.

All appeared to be going well until after the series of long tunnels. There are two main tunnels through the high mountains in Austria; each is about 7km long. 

Then you come to a pay station, where the traffic stops and goes through various lanes. I selected one that had a go-box sign and went straight through, with a few other larger vehicles. After that, the box gave off two chirps instead of one; this code has an orange exclamation mark beside it. This means go and find out what it means.

We stopped for the night at a very pretty and massive lake, with backdrop of mountains. Camping Brunner am see , on the Millstatter See. Quite spectacular, and again, quite lovely facilities and view. Yes the view above was from our van...and it was about 50 yards to the waterfront.

But now I am longing for the sea; the Med, and really hot sun. The site was lovely of course, but I was anxious to get on and also curious to find out what my go-box wanted to tell me.

So we got a list of the nearest go-box service places from the site and went off to feed the box into another machine, and wait for the information.

It helpfully allows you to print out all the charges for the motorways driven thus far, and what credit remains. It gave me the prices for each of the long tunnels too; €7.25 for the first one, and €8.19 for the second. We started with €62.50 of credit after paying in the minimum of €75 which includes the box itself, and setting it up. We had remaining credit of €26.41 which means that it had cost me €48 to travel from Salzburg in the north of Austria almost to Villach in the south. So what was the orange exclamation mark all about? Well it transpires that in going through the automatic toll, I needed to pay a balance; this amounted to €0 owing; and I must pay for it now. Well I tried to pay €0 but I found it difficult to find a €0 note in my wallet and did not trust the machine with my debit card.

So I left still owing €0, and I guess the machine was displeased, because although it gave me the box back, and it continued to work, it still registered a double chirp after each motorway bridge. Still, I got through Austria. What did it cost – well €75, since I could not find a machine to return the unspent funds when I got into Italy of course. It may cost about €55 to cross Austria, but you would have to take note of where the last Go-box service station is on the route south to claim back the unspent funds. There is no point prising the box apart and rattling it like a piggy bank, although I was tempted.

I have to say that I am glad I chose the motorways; the other roads that run close to the motorway go around the mountains and must surely induce travel sickness and a lot of delay.

Our roads ran straight up to and through any chunk of mountain in the way, quite impressively I thought. And the engineering required to tunnel straight through a chunk of rock for 7km is no mean feat.

My verdict: pay for the box and go through Austria in a very straight-forward fashion. Download and print the list of all the go service stations in Austria, and try and ensure that you visit the last one on the list and get the remaining funds returned, or keep the box loaded with funds for the return trip home.