Charging, Tolling & RUC

Toll evaders create major problems for tolling companies – of which lost revenue is only one. Open road tolling maximises roadway capacity but non-payers create enforcement problems Toll road operators are increasingly employing open road or free-flow electronic tolling to minimise travel times.

For the first time, the Australian ITS Summit and the National electronic Tolling Conference (NeTC), which takes place on 12-14 May in Melbourne, will combine as the most important gathering in Australia for ITS professionals in 2015. Delegates attending the combined Summit/NeTC Tolling Conference will have flexibility in attendance and choice of sessions. Attendees can register for: just the NeTC Tolling Conference, just the ITS Summit, or both.

Q-free has agreed to acquire Malta-based parking management solutions provider Traffiko for US$1.12 million; the deal also includes an earn-out condition that can generate up to US$1.12 million more. Q-Free and Traffiko have long partnered in parking management systems projects, most recently in the APCOA contract to supply systems for parking garages at the Stockholm globe arena. Traffiko offers a wide range of advanced traffic applications including secure cloud hosted web-based applications for car

Colin Sowman looks at the transition to free-flow charging on the Dartford Crossing, a notorious congestion blackspot on the UK motorway network. The Dartford Crossing, where London’s orbital M25 motorway crosses the lower reaches of the River Thames 32km (20 miles) to the east of Central London, has long been a major source of congestion. Now, to alleviate the congestion caused by some 50 million crossings per year, the Highways Agency has adopted a free-flow charging system - but the Crossing’s location a

Colin Sowman picks some highlights from a one- day ASECAP Conference about the EU's new regulations on Concessions. ASECAP, the association of European tolling companies, has outlined the scale of the challenge facing authorities and tolling companies in complying with the European Union’s Directives 2014/23/EU and 2014/24/EU in a new report and at a special conference in Brussels.

For the first time, the Australian ITS Summit and the National electronic Tolling Conference (NeTC), which takes place on 12-14 May in Melbourne, will combine as the most important gathering in Australia for ITS professionals in 2015. To be opened by Minister Luke Donnellan, Minister for Roads and Road Safety and Minister for Ports, the conference will bring together transportation engineers, manufacturers, consultants, business leaders, academia and government to hear about best practices, trends and em

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is to supply equipment for an electronic toll collection (ETC) system to be used on an expressway in Vietnam, including 50,000 on-board units for automobiles and antennas for use at toll gates. The ETC system will be introduced on the 55-kilometre Ho Chi Minh City to Dau Giay section of the route from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta. The system uses active-type dedicated short-range communication (active DSRC), the standard ETC system specification i

ITS International talks to Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the transport research and lobbying organisation, the RAC Foundation. It is through the eyes of an economist that Professor Stephen Glaister, emeritus professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London and director of the RAC Foundation, views current and future transport problems. Having spent 30 years at the London School of Economics and another 10 at Imperial, the move to the RAC Foundation was a radical departure from

The US toll road industry is gathering in Portland this week to discuss road usage charging (RUC), the mechanism that allows drivers to pay by the mile for their use of roads. Opening the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association’s (IBTTA) Transportation Financing and Road Usage Charging Conference, Patrick Jones, executive director, said a ‘sea change in thinking’ was needed to help find stable sources of funding for surface transportation. Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer told conferen

Oregon’s new pay-by-the-mile road usage charge program, OReGO, took a step forward Monday, as state officials announced that three private business partners are now technically certified to manage accounts and collect road user fees from those accounts for deposit into the State Highway Fund. “Oregon is pioneering the nation’s first pay-by-the-mile road usage charge system. We now have three trusted private partners on board — Azuga, Sanef and Verizon Telematics — that Oregonians can choose from when the