Charging, Tolling & Road Pricing

Toll system suppliers are considering service structures and technologies needed to address issues of social exclusion in open road tolling. Jason Barnes asked Telvent's Pat McGowan to explain moves to address the needs of all toll customers

France-headquartered Egis Projects has announced the acquisition of Dutch-based company Transpass which provides services to European heavy goods vehicle (HGV) fleets in electronic toll collection services on behalf of almost all concessionaires and operators in Europe (TollCollect in Germany, Asfinag in Austria, Autostrade in Italy, TIS-PL in France, etc.).

Kapsch TrafficCom IVHS has been selected by the E-ZPass Group, a coalition of 24 toll agencies in 14 US states, as vendor for a new 10-year technology and services contracts, subject to individual agency approval processes.

Efkon has supplied Austria's Asfinag Maut Service with mobile systems that help to automatically identify toll violators. In Austria and in other countries, the toll sticker system is widely used as the tolling method for vehicles with a maximum permissible gross weight under 3.5t because it is easy to use and economical.

Federal Signal Technologies (FSTech) and its Turkish integration partner, Litum Technologies, have been awarded a nationwide contract by Vendeka Bilgi Teknolojileri to transition Turkey's in-lane electronic toll collection (ETC) system infrastructure to ISO 18000-6C. With 580 lanes, it will be the first electronic toll collection project using passive UHF RFID technology in Europe.

A new project is under way in Minnesota, investigating whether smartphones are technically and publicly acceptable for use in road user charging. Jason Barnes reports. In Minnesota, trials have been launched to determine whether smartphones are technologically viable and acceptable to the public for distance based road user charging (RUC). The Midwestern US state has engaged with Battelle to explore RUC technology options in a project which falls under the auspices of the US Federal Connected Vehicle progra