What exactly changes in 2027?
Two regulatory tracks converge in 2027. First: ETS2, the extension of the European emissions trading system to the road transport and buildings sectors. Fuel distributors will be required to purchase emission allowances for the CO2 emissions of the fuels they supply. Those costs will feed through into the fuel price paid by carriers. Second: the revised Eurovignet directive, which obliges EU member states to differentiate road tolls and user charges based on CO2 emissions. In practice, this means a high-emission truck pays more in tolls than a low-emission truck on the same route. The Netherlands has already introduced a truck levy, but the link to emission categories becomes stricter and mandatory under this directive. The result is a double squeeze: higher fuel costs via ETS2, higher toll costs via CO2-differentiated charges. Both are variable, depending on vehicle type, fuel type, and route driven.
What are the operational consequences for transport companies?
The direct operational burden falls into three areas. First, costing: the rates you quote to customers must correctly account for the new charges. That is only possible if you know, for each trip, which route was driven, which vehicle was used, and which emission category that vehicle falls into. Companies that currently work this out from memory or track it in a spreadsheet will soon run into trouble. Second, cost pass-through: customers expect an itemised invoice. If you cannot demonstrate which CO2 surcharge applies to which trip, you will face disputes at the invoicing stage. Third, emissions reporting: depending on their size and CSRD obligations, companies must report their Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions. That requires structured trip data at vehicle and route level, not an annual total derived from fuel invoices. European truck manufacturers are lobbying for a delay to related CO2 standards for their vehicles, but the ETS2 timetable for fuel pricing remains on its planned date.
How does CO2-differentiated tolling work in practice?
Under the revised Eurovignet directive, vehicles are assigned a toll rate based on their emission class. A Euro 6 diesel pays less than a Euro 5, but more than a zero-emission vehicle. Some countries have been differentiating on Euro class for some time; the new rules make that mandatory and extend it to include CO2-specific categories. For a carrier managing a mixed fleet, this means the surcharge per trip depends on which vehicle is deployed in which country and on which corridor. That is information your system must be able to retrieve and incorporate into pricing, not something you track manually at trip level. Combined with ETS2 fuel prices, the variable cost side of a trip becomes considerably more complex than it was two years ago.
How do you prepare your operation?
Preparation starts with data, not software. Ask yourself: can I state today, for each trip, which vehicle was used, on which route, at what load factor, and what the toll and fuel costs per kilometre were? If the answer is no, that is the first problem to solve. Only then can you use that data for automated cost pass-through and emissions reporting. A TMS that knows the CO2 category of each vehicle, retrieves toll rates per corridor, and combines these in the trip calculation removes the manual work. That is not a futuristic wish list: these are the basic functions every serious TMS must handle by 2027. Companies still running on a generic package or spreadsheets have at most a year to change that.
When is custom development the better choice over a standard TMS?
A standard TMS covers the basic functions, but the specific combination of your fleet composition, customer rate structure, and reporting requirements rarely fits neatly into an off-the-shelf package. The moment you want to pass CO2 surcharges through differently per customer, maintain your own emission categories alongside the statutory ones, or link trip data to your CSRD reporting, a standard package hits configuration limits. A custom-built TMS can embed that logic at its core, so the cost calculator, invoicing, and reporting all draw from the same data source. That prevents duplicate work and errors in cost pass-through. It is not the right step for every carrier: companies with a straightforward fleet and limited customer variation can manage with a configurable package. But once complexity grows, custom development pays for itself.