Charging, Tolling & Road Pricing

NXP Semiconductors and IBM have announced the final results of a landmark road pricing trial conducted in the Netherlands, which demonstrated that with the help of technology, drivers can be motivated to change their driving behaviour, reducing traffic congestion and contributing to a greener environment.

Unbroken service Technolution's Winifred Roggekamp and Dave Marples describe efforts to upgrade the Westerscheldetunnel's tolling system to give free-flow capability. Until 2003 the Flanders region of Zeeland, in the south-west of the Netherlands, was connected to the mainland only by ferry. The new Westerscheldetunnel, a 6.6km toll tunnel, improves communications with the region considerably, taking some 100km off the alternative road journey. In 2006 it was recognised that the toll plaza for the tunnel ne

Turkey-based tolling specialist Aselsan has deployed its electronic toll collection technology for Izmit Bay Car Ferry, on the Marmara Sea.

There is no value in further US VMT charging trials, except to delay the inevitable. These trials should end after completion of the University of Iowa's National Evaluation of a Mileage-based Road User Charge. There is far greater promise in unleashing private operators to commence profitable, non-tolling services, then using these for toll assessment and collection as fuel distributors are currently used to collect fuel taxation. Bern Grush writes