Electronic Road Pricing

There is a rapid and growing movement by Governments throughout the world towards electronic Heavy Vehicle (HV) charging and road pricing to finance infrastructure, control congestion and improve social and environmental outcomes. It is now recognised that a move to a different way of paying for road use, on the basis of distance, time and location, is required to substantially improve the efficiency of infrastructure use, and deliver the right balance of mode choice and investment.

Road pricing technology is based on the combination of proven and widely available technology components, whereby the OBU uses satellite signals to pinpoint its current position and calculate the toll fees on the route segments travelled. The data is transmitted via a mobile telephone network from the OBU to a computer centre where the invoice is generated and sent to the user at pre-determined intervals. Using this technology platform, road pricing can be differentiated according to distance, time and location of the journey. The vehicle emissions class can also be factored into the tariff to improve environmental outcomes. GPS tolling is infinitely flexible and could be used for proactive traffic management, or to respond to dynamic events such as accidents or congestion.

By comparison gantry based technologies, while useful for cordon charging areas or separate road links, are not a practical or cost effective solution for a road pricing application. In addition to unwanted traffic diversion, gantry systems are expensive to build and typically require planning consents, which can result in long delays. By comparison a GPS based solution can be implemented in a relatively rapid time period, and can be installed and operated without any impact on traffic flow or the local environment. Finally GPS based toll systems allow the provision of value-added telemetry services such as location, navigation, and security functionality.