Changes at the Top for Toll Collect

The consortium of companies building Germany's troubled high-tech truck tolls system, Toll Collect, named a new chief executive on Tuesday, and put partner company Deutsche Telekom in charge of the project. The reshuffle is in accordance with the terms of the new contract the consortium signed with the German government last month. The new CEO is Christoph Bellmer, formerly an executive manager with Telekom's T-Systems subsidiary. He takes over the reins from Hans Burghardt Ziermann and Rainer Scholz, who have now left Toll Collect. T-Systems head Konrad Reiss was installed as chairman of the partners' committee overseeing the project. "We are going to do everything in our power to realize this politically, economically, and technically excellent project on time," he said. The consortium has set a new deadline of Dec. 31, 2004 for the start of a scaled-down version of the ambitious satellite-based toll system, which has suffered repeated delays due to technical problems.