- Primary Subject: American Truck Simulator & Euro Truck Simulator 2 (SCS Software) – Update 1.61
- Key Update: SCS Software's deliberate integration of mundane, friction-heavy real-world mechanics like weigh stations, toll barriers, customs checks, and fatigue management forms the foundation of the games' immersive realism.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: January 20, 2026
- Quick Answer: SCS Software intentionally uses weigh stations, toll booths, and border checks to create compelling gameplay realism through authentic real-world driving friction and logistics rules.
On December 22, 2014, more than a year before American Truck Simulator went on sale, SCS Software published a development blog about weigh stations.
Not a truck, and not a new state. A roadside facility whose entire purpose is to stop you and check your paperwork.
SCS called it "one of the core game functionalities in American Truck Simulator." That is a strange thing to advertise, and it turned out to be exactly right.
The parts of these games where nothing is supposed to be happening are the parts I remember most clearly.
SCS was selling the inspection before it was selling the truck
ATS launched on February 2, 2016, with a working version of the real PrePass transponder system. A reader on a gantry decides your fate as you approach.
Green light and you carry on, red light and you take the ramp. I have read that light a beat too late more often than I would like to admit, and ended up committing to the ramp at the last possible second.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 took far longer to get there. Weigh stations didn't arrive until Road to the Black Sea on December 5, 2019, then reached the base map with the Austria rework in update 1.44 before Switzerland received three more in 1.50.
European trucks have no PrePass, so the Route Advisor tells you to pull in every single time. Before update 1.37, the scales did not weigh anything at all, and the only way to get fined was to drive straight past.
Since 1.37, a truck more than ten percent damaged or running an illegal trailer gets charged at the scale.
SCS described the Swiss installations at Saint-Maurice, Erstfeld and Rothenbrunnen in a blog on December 28, 2023, framing them entirely around realism:
"The reworked weigh stations aim to enhance the realism of the gameplay by incorporating these essential elements."
Toll booths went from a full stop to a barrier you barely notice
Tolls turned up early in ETS2, concentrated in France, Italy and Poland, and they all demanded a full stop. The Scandinavia expansion introduced electronic collection with no barrier at all.
Italy moved to non-stop Telepass in update 1.30, Austria gained electronic lanes after 1.44, and 1.57 converted Scandinavia's tolls entirely.
France still carries more toll gates than any other country in the game, with the approach limit dropping from 70 km/h to 30.
ATS stayed sparse for years, running a handful of single gates near San Francisco and nothing else.
Oklahoma added turnpike tolls on August 1, 2023, and Kansas followed on November 30 with the first ticketed toll route in either game, where you collect a ticket at one end and settle up on the way out.
The borders only got interesting once SCS left the Schengen zone
The 2012 base game had no working borders whatsoever. Crossings were buildings with flags on them. Functional checkpoints arrived with Beyond the Baltic Sea on November 29, 2018, and SCS was candid that this created a design problem:
"Customs checks are taking place on both sides of the border line, and they may take a long time to spend in a queue, which may turn out to be clashing with our desire for fluid gameplay."
Road to the Black Sea pushed further in 2019 with X-ray and customs facilities, including two of the largest crossings between Bulgaria and Turkey.
The blog announcing them signed off with "Papers Please!" Switzerland brought border control to the base map in 1.50, and 1.57 added a one-way customs check running from Germany into Denmark.
Ask around the community and the same note keeps surfacing, which is that Schengen took the border out of the border.
My longest wait came at the Turkish crossing, creeping forward a truck length at a time behind AI rigs, and it was the most patient I have ever been in a video game.
Yosemite is the one road the game dares you to drive
Tioga Pass went into ATS with update 1.31 in 2018, and SCS explained in the same breath why it should not be there at all:
"Typically, commercial trucking is restricted in US national parks. Still, this region is so scenic, and the task was so tempting, we decided to give it a go, and to find an excuse in the game for allowing the player to travel across the mountain pass."
When the California rework reached Yosemite in February 2024, the studio said it again.
"Whilst this is not normally an area where trucks are allowed to travel through, we couldn't go without reworking this area from the ground up."
So the road exists, the GPS will cheerfully route you through it, and a sign at the entrance tells you to turn around. Ignore it, and you get fined.
Montana pulls the same trick with Going-to-the-Sun Road, closed to commercial traffic unless you happen to be running freight to the construction site on it.
SCS built a beautiful road and then charged admission in the form of a rule you have to break.
Fatigue is the one system everyone switches off
The clock is where the goodwill runs out. Update 1.60 split fatigue into two systems: a Rest State that drains toward microsleeps and a separate Mandatory Break counter.
ETS2 gives you ten hours of driving before the stop becomes compulsory, then wants nine consecutive hours of sleep. Both toggle independently, and a lot of drivers toggle them straight off.
I understand the impulse, and I still leave mine running. Weigh stations, tolls, and customs posts are friction you drive through. Fatigue is friction that ends the session.
The community has been voting on this question for years without anyone framing it as a vote.
TruckersMP caps its ETS2 Simulation servers at 110 km/h and reports that its unrestricted Arcade servers sit "underutilised even during peak hours."
The most-installed mods add weather, traffic density and stricter hours rather than stripping any of it away. I have never once loaded ETS2 because I wanted to get somewhere quickly.
I load it because somewhere between here and Rotterdam, a man in a hi-vis vest is going to wave me onto a scale, and I want to find out whether my paperwork holds up.
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