Electronic Fee Collection Some lessons learnt

1. Electronic Fee CollectionSome lessons learnt Fritz Bolte CEDR EFC Group Vienna, 2005-09-08 CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

2. Planning Phase • NRA’s are in all cases involved in design and operation of toll systems. • e.g. • in design and implementation phase or • in the approval of requirements for calls for tenders or • in granting contracts to service providers. CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

3. Additional Design Criteria • Additional design criteria for motorways are: • motorways without tolling plaza’s • density of access • exit points of motorways and • among system types mentioned the Swiss system is not really reflected. It should be mentioned as it is an existing system and as it has its own advantages (and disadvantages). • (See Ch. 4) CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

4. EFC Issues • In the enumeration of NRA’s general two roles please add a third one: • granting contracts to toll service providers (road operator, toll collectors) • (see chapter 5) CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

5. Additional Issues for NRAs • Issues affecting the definition of local/re-gional/national EFC system: • legal issues • political objectives of EFC application • traffic management purposes pursued • area, type of road and type of vehicles to be tolled • structure of the network, availability of toll plazas • technological development/ripeness of roadside and in-vehicle equipment • interoperability considerations • flexibility of EFC systems and tariffications CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

6. Legal issues • Legal details must be very clear when implementation of EFC has started. • Costs rapidly increase if new requirements are defined after a system has been designed and more or less be agreed to. • Design, procurement and installation must be based on solid political decisions CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

7. Comparison of investment costs (and operation costs) • General consideration needed, such as: • type of cost occurring, • investment costs: costs occur of different positions, • investment and operational costs for roadside infrastructure, • investment and operational costs for ”backside office” (such as collection of clients data, account keeping and billing, treatment of offences, system performance monitoring and updates of tariffs etc.) • costs of in-vehicle units (On Board Units = OBU’s) • costs of enforcement CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

8. Enforcement • Different possibilities exist, also again depending of type of EFC systems installed. • Some countries require (and some systems enable) a hundred percent control and enforcement of transactions. • However, where 100% is not possible suitable enforcement strategies and procedures need be designed according to statistical considerations of road user fees and probability to be detected. • A well balanced trade-off is needed. CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

9. Implementation • Do not underestimate technological issues. ”Generally speaking the technology should not be a big issue.”) • Though there are a number of proven concepts, design and implementation must be tuned to local conditions and can hardly be bought ”off the shelf”. • Simplicity of the solution is not generally a success factor. It has to be taken into account, which political targets and strategic goals are being pursued. A simple system may have the possibility to collect fees but will not be able to cope with a lot of other useful or even needed functionalities. CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

10. Simple or complex Requirements? As an example, the Swiss systems is very simple but does not allow for traffic management applications, such as classification of tariffs according to types of roads, costs of infrastructure used, time of day and road usage. Therefore, the time sequence of different phases of implementing an EFC system must strictly be considered such as: 1.)Political decisions about area, type of road, type of vehicles and flexibility of tariffs as basis for general functional requirements on a high level followed by 2.)medium level functionality and finally 3.)definition of low level functionality which will be collected in the ”book of requirements”. Maybe we should put a bit more emphasis on this planning process. CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

11. Future development of technology as well of roadside as of in-vehicle equipment. • Another point that should be considered in this context is the future development of technology as well of roadside as of in-vehicle equipment. • Today, most tolling systems and OBU’s are separated from other roadside or in-vehicle equipment. • However, taking an easy vision into future developments, it can be anticipated that in the future many functionalities will be a part of basic vehicle equipment which can also be used for EFC on board units, such as • GPS receivers, • navigation systems with electronic maps, • communication channels using GMS, UMTS, DAB, FM-band • numerous vehicle sensors as used for driver assistance systems (ABS, ESP, AICC, longitudinal and lateral support, ....) CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08

12. Technological Integration • link EFC to other future traffic applications such as • fleet management, • dynamic route guidance, • traffic management in general • etc ... • Vehicles as data sources for Traffic Management? CERD-EFC; Vienna 2005-09-08