European Electronic Toll Service

marmurr1916

A new European Electronic Toll Service which "will enable all road transport operators to pay user charges across all EU countries through a single on-board unit and to subscribe to only one electronic tolling service without paying additional fees for interoperability" is going to be rolled out across the EU within the next three to five years:

http://www.irishtrucker.com/news/news_detail.asp?nid=5083

Commission clears the way for a single European Road Toll Service

The European Commission today adopted a decision setting out the essential technical specifications and requirements needed to launch a European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) which will enable road users to easily pay tolls throughout the whole European Union (EU) thanks to one subscription contract with one service provider and one single on-board unit. EETS will be available on all infrastructures in the entire Community such as motorways, tunnels and bridges where toll can be paid using on-board equipment. EETS will eventually limit cash transactions at toll stations, thereby improving traffic flow and reducing congestion.

European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, in charge of Transport, considers this decision to be the most important improvement for drivers since the abolition of border controls, stating that "the European Electronic Toll Service will enable road users to easily pay tolls throughout the whole European Union thanks to one subscription contract with one service provider and one single on-board unit".

Electronic toll systems were introduced in several European countries in the early 1990s. Most systems operate with an on-board unit communicating the vehicle’s characteristics to the road operators in view to determining the toll, for instance based on the vehicle's weight and size.

However, the various national and local electronic road toll systems are generally incompatible and can only communicate with their respective on-board units. These non-interoperable road toll systems especially hinder international road transport. For example, to travel from Portugal to Denmark five or more on-board units might be needed on the vehicle's dashboard, each unit being covered by a particular contract for a particular road operator. For the transporter this entails time-consuming paperwork and costly administrative burden in reconciling travel data, received invoices, contracts clauses and payment orders.

The Commission Decision adopted today also lays down the rights and obligations of toll chargers, service providers, and users. Users will be able to subscribe to the service provider of their choice. Toll chargers will communicate the tolls due to the service providers, who will eventually invoice the users. Tolls paid via EETS may not exceed the corresponding national or local tolls.

EETS will be available within three years for all road vehicles above 3.5 tonnes or allowed to carry more than nine passengers, including the driver. It will be available for all other vehicles within five years.

Good news for Irish hauliers and tourists.

munchkin_utd

mother of god.
thats going to be some box of tricks!!

it has to deal with simple account based systems like in ireland or Austria where your box in the window simply identifies you and enables a sum to be charged to your account (but has to work in all countries with that system)
PLUS it has to have a satellite receiver onboard for the system for truck tolls in Germany which uses gps to track how many motorway kilometres a truck has covered.
(info from the austrian motorways company, i just cross referenced to make sure Germany was on board as they already pulled out of a tolling cooperative in central europe a few years back to bring in the satellite thinggie)

The integration and test of this baby will be a welcome cash cow for any companies involved!! God knows how long it'll take to actually bring to market. It could make the e voting in ireland look like penny change!!

The next step is a conference at the end of october which will discuss the technical details (and maybe the depth of the bottomless pit which is full of cash to finance it!!)

L1011

\o/

I've been whimpering to eTrip and the M6Toll in the UK about getting compatibility before - having to change lanes on the M6T booths at 2am because you forgot you hadn't stopped and got change yet and the card readers are the other side of the booths ain't fun

Zoney

munchkin_utd:

Not unprecedented though - from what I gather some fairly crazy software is needed in mobile phone network systems to ensure users are billed properly by whoever in the world may be their carrier.