Charging, Tolling & RUC

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has released the first draft of its five-year MassDOT Capital Investment Plan (CIP) for FY2014-FY2018. The US$12.4 billion program makes long-term investments and represents the first unified, multi-modal capital investment plan covering all MassDOT highway and municipal projects, regional airports, rail and transit, including the MBTA and Regional Transit Authorities. The proposal, which must be approved the state's Department of Transportation

USDOT has released its new ITS ePrimer, a web-based textbook on intelligent transportation systems, providing transportation professionals, educators, students, and others with a series of up-to-date, web-based modules describing key ITS topics, with a multi-modal perspective. The ITS ePrimer replaces the Intelligent Transportation Primer first published in 2000 in collaboration with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and ITS America. Public and private agencies and educational institutions

David Crawford examines the political and industrial background to the tolling technology debate. Saving the US State of California ‘millions of dollars’ in tolling infrastructure costs by encouraging new technologies is the professed aim of a legislative Bill, SB 242, which is currently moving through the State’s Senate (upper house) process. According to its sponsor, Republican State Senator Mark Wyland, permitting alternatives to the current FasTrak-branded radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based sys

David Crawford reports on energy cost cutting on US highways. Just over a year after switch-on and with two global awards under its belt, the longest solar-powered toll road in the US is generating heightened interest in highway applications of alternative energy. The E-407, which loops around the eastern perimeter of the Denver metropolitan area in Colorado, won the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) President’s Overall Award for Excellence at its September 2013 Annual Meeting in

Australia’s Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) has awarded Q-Free an order for its OBU610 tags valued at US$2.4 million. This latest generation toll transponder is claimed by the company to be the smallest of its kind, yet powerful enough to support both single and multiple protocol applications. With a battery life of more than seven years, the transponder supports any application from single lane to full multi-lane free-flow and open-road tolling.

From 1 January, Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), Austin, Texas, began his year-long term as president of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA). He says: “Over the next year, I look forward to leading our industry’s international association while highlighting the great work at The Mobility Authority and other IBTTA member organisations around the globe.” Eight other directors also began new terms on the IBTTA’s bo

Launched in August 2013, the electronic tolling system installed in Belarus by Kapsch has seen a high level of use, with the number of registered users to date standing at approximately 160,000. This high usage has lead to the system being extended by 118 kilometres from January 2014. The expansion covers a segment of the M4 Minsk to Mogilev road, which will increase the total length of the Kapsch-operated toll roads in Belarus to 933 kilometres; an additional eleven tolling and enforcement gantries will

Portuguese tag issuer Via Verde, part of the Brisa Group, has ordered on-board units from Q-Free in an order worth approximately US$1.9 million. The order will be delivered within the second quarter of 2014. Q-Free’s fourth generation OBU610 is small and unobtrusive, yet powerful enough to support all applicable 5.8GHz CEN DSRC protocols for automatic registration, identification and fee collection from vehicles. “Via Verde has been customer of Q-Free since 1995 and we have now supplied more than 3.2

Georgia Tolls has awarded contracts for their second and third toll express lanes project on I-75 south and I-75/575 northwest. With national interoperability planned they require the toll systems supplier to install multi-protocol readers on the toll gantries to E-ZPass transponders as well as 6C sticker tags. Toll system integrator will be 3M who is to provide the toll system including vehicle detection, tracking and classification loops, 3-protocol RF readers, license plate imaging cameras and illumin

Spanish technology multinational Indra has been awarded four new contracts worth US$17 million for its traffic control and toll technology in Mexico. The technology will be implemented on the Paquete Michoacán motorways, the Poetas fast lane, the Celaya ring road motorway and the Necaxa Tihuatlan tunnels. Intelligent traffic systems (ITS) and toll systems will be deployed on the Celaya ring road motorway, including a control centre to integrate the various ITS and surveillance sub-systems via closed circ