Charging, Tolling & RUC

Jason Barnes considers how combining enforcement equipment with other traffic management technologies might benefit our future – if only the will were really in place to do so. During the ITS World Congress in Vienna in October last year, Navtech Radar and Vysion­ics ITS announced a strategic partnership that would combine the expertise of Navtech in millimetre-wave wide-area surveillance technology with Vysionics’ machine vision-based automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and average speed measurement

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) State Route (SR) 237 Express Lanes, for which TransCore serves as lead integrator, received the 2012 Transportation Project of the Year Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). VTA is implementing the Silicon Valley Express Lanes Program to provide congestion relief in one of its major Bay Area commuter corridors. As part of the program, the SR 237, US 101, SR 85 and parts of I-680 corridor will convert the existin

Schneider Electric is to use its expertise and experience in developing and implementing free-flow toll system management solutions and electronic toll payment solutions in the design, supply and installation of the tolling system back office for Australia’s New South Wales Government's Roads and Maritime Services (RMS). RMS is a delivery arm of Transport for NSW and is responsible for building and maintaining roads, conducting driving tests, issuing licences and registrations and overseeing harbours and wa

The New York State Thruway is converting two mainline and one side toll plaza to all electronic (AET) or cashless toll collection, in a drive to contain spiralling employee costs and debts caused by a reduction in traffic. Although the original plan called for open road tolling (ORT) plus a cash toll plaza, the Request for Proposals for the new bridge allowed bidders to propose AET during the construction if that reduced disruption of traffic. Work is now starting on the new bridge which under the contract

Officials in Texas and Oklahoma say their electronic toll systems could be interoperable in 2014. Chairman of the Team Texas Interoperability Committee Clayton Howe says the exact timing will be up to Oklahoma to decide but indications are it could be up and running by the end of the year. Interoperability will mean Texans will be able to travel Oklahoma's turnpikes and receive their tolls on their Texas accounts. Similarly, Oklahoma drivers will be able to drive on Texas tollroads and be billed to their Ok

Said to be the biggest congestion charge scheme to launch in any city, the London scheme got off to a smooth start ten years ago on 17 February 2003, much to the surprise of London's then mayor Ken Livingstone, who ten years later says “it turned out better than I expected.” None of the anticipated pre-7am congestion as drivers attempted to avoid the charge happened, and by the end of the first day 57,000 drivers had paid it. The main problem seemed to be that buses were all running ahead of time and had t

In Oregon, gas-tax money funds about 58 per cent of the budget used to take care of the state’s roads. As vehicles become more fuel efficient, the gas tax, which is 30 cents a gallon in Oregon and 37 cents in Washington, will generate less and less money. “If we’re using gasoline and diesel sales to fund our transportation system, we’re going to be in big trouble,” said Patrick Cooney of the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). Recognizing the problem early, Oregon started studying alternatives to th

Confidex, Finland-based supplier of specialty RFID tags, has been awarded OCS certification for its 6C RFID windshield tag by OmniAir Certification Services (OCS), the test-affiliate of OmniAir Consortium, a technology-focused member association created to enable the deployment of interoperable advanced transportation technologies and applications. OCS certification positions Confidex as a certified, high-quality, high-volume RFID tag provider for the North American electronic toll collection market. The Co

The American parking industry is backing a government initiative to expand electric vehicle charging stations in the workplace. The International Parking Institute (IPI) has become a founding ambassador in the US DoE’s Workplace Charging Challenge, the latest element of the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, announced by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at the recent Washington Auto Show’s Public Policy Day. The Workplace Charging Challenge is assisting the growth of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) by urging emp

The latest research by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that red light running rates declined at Arlington, Virginia, intersections equipped with cameras. The decreases were particularly large for the most dangerous violations, those happening 1.5 seconds or longer after the light turned red. "This study provides fresh evidence that automated enforcement can get drivers to modify their behaviour," says Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at IIHS and the study's lead au