Charging, Tolling & RUC

The Philippines’ government has recently approved a US$612 million contract for the Metro Manila Skyway (MMS) Stage 3 Project which will connect the Southern Luzon Expressway to the Northern Luzon Expressway. The flood free, mostly elevated six lane expressway, is approximately 14.2 kilometres long and is expected to reduce congestion and reduce travel times on major roads in Manila.

Brazil's federal government will launch tenders by 12 October for three new federal highway concessions totalling 2,765 kilometres, according to transport minister César Borges. Falling under the country's US$110 billion transportation logistics program, the largest concession involves 1,100 kilometres of highway through the Federal District and the states of Goiás and Minas Gerais. An 851 kilometre stretch in the state of Mato Grosso will also be tendered, while an 814 kilometre highway segment between

The forthcoming IBTTA (International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association) global technology workshop will highlight current and future technologies for the toll industry and will showcase the differences and similarities among the technologies used in the global tolling market. Hosted by French ASECAP member, ASFA (French Federation of Motorways and Toll Facility Companies) and supported by ASECAP, the workshop takes place in Deauville, France, from 27 to 29 October.

The world’s tolling executives, engineers, and planners gathered in Vancouver last week to share best practices and innovations in transportation from nineteen countries around the globe. The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association’s (IBTTA) selected Vancouver for its 81st Annual Meeting and Exhibition due to the city’s dramatic transportation renaissance over the past-decade that has been fuelled by innovative funding solutions, including public-private partnerships, serving as a world-cl

Transportation technology provider Xerox has signed a contract worth around US$100 million with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to provide customer service and toll operations to the state over the next five years. Xerox will establish a new customer service operation in Austin, Texas to process a growing base of more than eight million monthly toll transactions while managing over 750,000 accounts. Customer service centre operations include transaction processing, license plate image rev

The Colombian government is to release funds of US$12.27 billion from the national budget for the Autopistas de la Prosperidad road programme, involving nine road concessions. Concession holders will invest US$7.4 billion into these projects; since monies from tolls will be insufficient to complete all works, the government will inject further funds of US$23.2 billion over the next decade. Ministers have stressed the importance of this road infrastructure and the need to speed up the process. This news

The launch of Bali’s first all-vehicle tolled highway on 23 September is expected to ease congestion in an area increasingly famous for its notorious traffic. The country already has a toll road especially for motorcycles. The project is designed to reduce congestion on the 12.7 kilometre Benoa-Kuta-Nusa Dua stretch, at a cost of US$217 million. The road runs over the sea and was built using 33,835 concrete columns, some of them through an area of mangrove forest.

The Mersey Gateway Project in Liverpool, UK, has been endorsed by the UK’s most senior civil engineer, Nick Baveystock, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers, on a trip to the area see the location of the new bridge and learn more about plans for the project. The centrepiece of the Mersey Gateway Project is a new six-lane toll bridge over the River Mersey. The existing Silver Jubilee Bridge will also be tolled as part of the project, which is expected to help create thousands of new jobs

Bay Area Infrastructure Financing Authority (BAIFA) has announced the competitive procurement of a toll system integrator (TSI) to design and provide toll systems for nearly 90 directional miles of toll express lanes and expects to be tolling a total of 270 miles within a few years. The plan is to develop toll express lanes following agreement on a regional network in which all the area's HOV lanes will be tolled for single and two occupant vehicles. The RFP covers three initial projects: 55 kilometres o

Q-Free is to implement its enhanced imaging processing (EIP) solution for the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX), USA in a contract worth around US$6.9 million. EIP utilises automatic licence plate reader (ALPR) and vehicle signature recognition (VSR) software and enables toll authorities to achieve high automation and low error rates using artificial intelligence and self learning capabilities. The system interfaces with existing toll road back office systems, minimising operational cost, errors, an