Charging, Tolling & RUC

Electronic toll systems in Texas and Oklahoma could be interoperable as soon as 2014, according to toll authorities from both states. Moves to link tolling systems in Texas and Oklahoma will enable drivers with Texas tolling accounts or Oklahoma turnpike accounts to travel on the other state’s toll roads using their current toll tags. The tolls would be automatically billed to the out-of-state driver’s account. “Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said it would be good to have interoperability with other states,

Port Mann Bridge, designed to growing regional congestion and improve the movement of people, goods and transit throughout greater Vancouver, is now open for business. The widest bridge in the world, the Port Mann Bridge located in the metro Vancouver area, in British Columbia, Canada, features an Open Road Tolling (ORT) system, also called All Electronic Tolling (AET), which will ultimately cross all 10 lanes of traffic.

Delegates convened in Brussels for Europe’s 10th annual Road User Charging Conference in March, when both positive and negative developments came to light for advocates of more widespread introduction of RUC. Jon Masters reports. Goings on across Europe in recent months have again demonstrated how very sensitive road user charging (RUC) is politically. At the 10th annual Road User Charging Conference in Brussels at the beginning of March, a Danish delegation was notable for its absence, but Belgian governme

To improve interoperability of road charging systems, the European Commission must focus on better implementation of existing legislation and assess the need for new measures to encourage the development of a EU-wide electronic toll system, according to an own-initiative report adopted in the Transport and Tourism Committee. MEPs say incentives for road operators and toll service providers have not been sufficient and criticise lack of action by Member States to develop EU-wide standards, as set out in a Di

Q-Free’s Australian subsidiary, Q-Free Australia, has been awarded an order valued at US$2.9 million for on board units (OBU) by the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) in Australia. Q-Free Australia, based in Sydney, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Q-Free ASA, operating in Australia for over ten years to implement and deliver new road user charging projects and to manage the ongoing service, maintenance and upgrade activities of existing installations. Q-Free Australia has been working with Roads and Maritim

The concept of road users in Florida paying a mileage tax can no longer be considered a far fetched one. The statewide transportation advisory group Florida Metropolitan Planning Organisation Advisory Council (MPO) has asked the state legislature to start considering a system that requires individuals to pay for each mile driven. An earlier two-year MPO study to find a way to pay for the state’s future transportation needs found that, for the long-term, the state could no longer rely on a fuel tax, which c

Toll roads in Orange County California are due to go cashless and all-electronic (AET) in the spring of 2014 according to an announcement from the Transportation Corridors Agencies (TCA) which has just has just approved a contracts with TransCore. The contract is for US$36.42 million and provides for provision of a new toll system that is regular AET mix of RFID transponder tolling and image based licence plate reads in an open road setting. TransCore will also maintain the system for ten years. A statement

Splinteroperability is a word devised by Travis P. Dunn and Victor J. Michelet C. to encapsulate the lack of progress towards ETC harmonisation in the US and Mexico. Five thousand miles of tolled roads and bridges. Widespread implementation of electronic toll collection (ETC) systems. One dominant interoperable ETC service provider covering just over half the nation’s toll facilities. Numerous other ETC service providers offering alternative visions of interoperability. Years of customer requests for better

Three Belgian regions, Polis members Brussels and Flanders, together with the Walloon region, have agreed on a road user charging test project, to study the impact of such a tax on driver behaviour. The will use 1200 participants from different socio-economic groups within the Brussels Regional Express Network (GEN) area to asses the behavioural change that would be induced by the charge. The tests will investigate the impact on mobility, choice of routes, choice of modes, and will investigate the link betw

Austrian intelligent transportation and tolling solutions supplier Efkon Group has been awarded two major tolling contracts in Germany and Malaysia. As one of the main suppliers to the German truck tolling system, Efkon has received a follow-up order for the delivery of on-board units (OBU) for the satellite-based truck tolling system in the country. The OBU is installed in a vehicle to ensure the automatic payment of toll charges in electronic toll collection (ETC) systems. Efkon, one of the main supplier