Charging, Tolling & RUC

Despite support from the Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) and the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA), Gauteng’s e-tolls will not be replaced with a fuel levy after the country’s other eight provinces overwhelmingly rejected this idea, saying they will not be made to pay for excellent roads when theirs are poorly maintained. The provinces also rejected a proposal that the national government should take over the funding of improvements to Gauteng highways. Instead of the current user-pay p

Q-Free has further expanded its advanced traffic management systems and road user charging business, with the acquisition of US company Open Roads Consulting. Q-Free says Open Roads Consulting's software solutions will be a valuable addition to its own ATMS solutions in the US and internationally. Established in 2000, Open Roads Consulting has 74 employees and operates mission critical traffic deployments and video based surveillance of critical assets in 30 states in the US. “We are happy to close t

Tolling may be the way forward for paying for the roads of the future - but where will concessionaires find the money and do they need funding or financing? Increasingly, governments around the world are concluding that they can no longer pay for new roads and are turning to the private sector for help.

ASECAP debated the impact of the financial crises on Europe’s tolling companies and considered the future in diverse economies. Colin Sowman picks some of the highlights. This year ASECAP (Association Europeenne des Concessionnaires d’Autoroutes et d’Ouvrages a’ Peage, with members in 21 countries managing 46,000km of roadway) held its annual Study & Information Days in Athens, Greece – one of the country hardest hit by recent economic problems. While the theme of the conference, Ensuring Sustainability in

‘The delay of the introduction of free-flow tolls at Dartford River Crossing disappointing as it may present additional costs to industry’ is the message from the Freight Transport Association (FTA). The Association has voiced its concern in response to the announcement by the Highways Agency (HA) that the planned technology to allow motorists to use the crossing without having to stop at barriers and pay is to be delayed by up to four weeks. Originally planned to be in place by the 28 October 2014, th

Established in 2011, Indian technology and infrastructure company Vaaan has been awarded two major projects valued at around US$25 million from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) through its highway operations management agency, Indian Highways Management Company (IHMCL). The company is to deploy electronic toll collection (ETC) on 164 dedicated lanes across 82 public funded toll plazas in a bid to to reduce traffic congestion and commuting time. In addition, in a move to identify which h

New regulations are set to standardise the process of awarding concessions across the European Union. In the wake of several inconsistent judgements at the European Court of Justice, the European Commission has approved new legislation that defines a concession. The basic demarcation from a public contract remains the same in that concessions include the right to exploit the work or services provided instead of payment. However, at the point of signing, the regulations impose an all-inclusive threshold of €

UK manufacturer of CCTV transmission solutions, AMG, has completed a new toll management transmission solution on the Solapur Highway for transportation company ITNL in India. ITNL is using the solution to monitor two toll plazas with a total of 20 Lanes with 24 booths, four of which have reversible lanes. The project covers a road stretch of 105 kilometres, with 49 kilometres between the toll Plazas. The new system includes 132 cameras of which 126 are fixed cameras and six are pan, tilt zoom cameras.

Cubic has announced an integrated back office system which can collate charges from tolling, parking and transit ticketing and allocate that to a single account. This not only can allow travellers to receive a single invoice covering all transit modes, it also enables authorities to target and incentivise commuters’ choice of transit mode. As part of its NextCity regional charging system for travel, we can look at a journey from start to finish and this gives authorities a clearer picture of travel patt

The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has awarded the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai the prestigious 2014 Toll Excellence Award in Technology for its expansion of the Salik toll system, implemented by TransCore. The award was presented at IBTTA’s 82nd annual meeting in Austin, Texas. Already home to the world’s widest open-road tolling zone spanning seven lanes in a single direction, RTA’s objectives were to reduce growing traffic congestion, encourage use of alte