Charging, Tolling & RUC

This month saw the start of e-tolling on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) in South Africa, one of the largest electronic toll collection systems for open road tolling in the world, following an announcement by the country’s Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters, in November. Kapsch TrafficCom reports that the number of active accounts has been consistently rising following the commencement of the e-toll project in Gauteng, on 3 December. Kapsch anticipates that this trend will continue. Kapsc

Moody’s Investor Services have up-rated the outlook for US toll roads from negative to stable. They think traffic should grow 1.5 per cent on a median basis in 2014, which they describe as a “sustainable comeback” from the three per cent decline since 2009. They think toll revenues should grow to a “mid-single digit percentage range” in 2013 and 2014 which we guess means 4 per cent to 6 per cent. They note such an increase in toll revenues is a slowdown from 2012 when big toll rate increases boosted r

Following a nine-month field test, Denver, Colorado-based E-470 highway authority is to use Confidex’s 18000-6C UHF RFID windshield tags in their all-electronic ExpressToll toll collection system. E-470 processes on average 3.5 million ExpressToll transactions monthly, requiring a high level of reliability for the non-stop, electronic tolling system at highway speeds. The OmniAir-certified18000-6C UHF tag is a reliable and tamper evident solution that is attached to the car windshield to automatically id

India's Gujarat state has begun commercial operation of a radio frequency identification (RFID) electronic toll collection (ETC) system supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). The system, the country's first fully access-controlled expressway, uses RFID readers installed at toll plazas to detect in-vehicle RFID tags and collect tolls. The 59-lane toll system has six toll plazas; 28 lanes are equipped with the new system, which officials hope will contribute to easing traffic congestion and preserv

The E-ZPass Group is to work with OmniAir Certification Services (OCS) to specify a testing program for ensuring full compliance of competitive equipment with E-ZPass readers and tags. OCS was hired by the E-ZPass Group for fees of around US$50,000 to detail the testing needed. The documents are due to be completed by the end of the year. Actual testing for certification will be negotiated by manufacturers with OCS-accredited testing firms. The move to certify additional suppliers’ equipment follows K

Erich Erker, Norbert Schindler, Peter Tschulik from Siemens Electronic Tolling examine the barriers to EETS deployment. Tolling in Europe was introduced to pay for the construction and operation of individual tunnels, bridges and highways and has evolved in major steps. The original manual tolling systems were highly disruptive to traffic flow and required the creation of large toll plazas, with multiple lanes and toll booths to ensure an acceptable throughput. With the introduction of Dedicated Short Range

International engineering group Egis has partnered with tolling ITS solutions provider Actoll to create TollSys, developer of tolling back office software solutions. TollSys will benefit from business process controls and project management provided by Egis, while Actoll will provide its Ticks software publishing and expertise in toll software development. Its Ticks BPMN studio platform will form the development tool for back office software.

The transport and communications ministry (SCT) in Mexican consortium is to go ahead with the 62 kilometre Siglo XXI highway concession in Morelos state. The US$211 million contract to build, operate and maintain the concession has been awarded to a consortium of Pinfra, Grupo Bursátil Mexicano and Aldesa Mexico. The SCT confirmed that tenders for the 80 kilometre Atizapán-Atlacomulco and the 70 kilometre Guanajuato-San Miguel de Allende highway are under way.

Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) is expected to call a tender for the installation of the next generation of electronic road pricing (ERP) system as early as the first half of 2014. Although there is potential for it to go island-wide, initially the ERPII system will utilise the current network of some 70 gantries, charging drivers each time they pass a gantry. If all goes well, a satellite-based system, which charges motorists for the distance they travel in the priced zones, will be up and r

Taiwan’s 900 kilometres of toll roads will transition to all-electronic free flow operations early next year. The roads, which include three north-south routes with 22 toll points, carry out around 1.7 million transactions a day, generating some US$700 million of annual toll revenue. Private contractor Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Company (FETC), under contract to the National Freeway Bureau to collect the tolls, says that the IR-based toll system worked well and some 43 per cent of transactio