Moreover, tolls do not create any distortion of competition within the internal market since they are payable by all operators irrespective of their Member State of origin or establishment and in proportion to the intensity of use of the road network.

Nothing in this Directive prevents a Member State from limiting the use of a particular type of vehicle to certain parts of its road network for reasons of road safety.

Such schemes involve purchasing a vignette authorising the use of a certain road network for a specific amount of time (one day, one month or a full year).

Where a single tolling regime is not to be applied to the whole TEN road network, a Member State shall specify precisely the part or parts of the network which are to be subject to a tolling regime as well as the system its uses to classify vehicles for the purposes of toll variation.

It provides a much-needed level playing field at the Union's level, and will allow recovery of the internal and external costs of the use of the TENs road network. It will allow Member States, when adopted, to impose extra charges in some sensitive bottlenecked areas in order to finance alternative sustainable infrastructures (for example, estimates suggest that between 30 to 40% of the costs associated with the proposed Brenner Tunnel could be met using revenues from the mark-up allowed under the proposed Eurovignette rules). Finally, providing a clear and co-ordinated strategic vision of these infrastructure projects will help potential investors to determine the expected return on their investment, be it in the cross-border segment itsel ...[+++]f, in national segments of a TENs priority corridor, or in other connected infrastructures.

These include: the completion of the most heavily used motorway corridors, the connection of outlying regions with the major centres of economic activity, a reduction in the excessively radial structure of the Spanish road network, the relief of urban congestion and the integration of the Spanish road network with its neighbours.