Electronic toll collection

The payment system usually requires users to sign up in advance and load money into a declining-balance account, which is debited each time they pass a toll point.

With satellite-based tolling solutions, it is not necessary to install electronic readers beside or above the road in order to read transponders since all vehicles are equipped with On Board Units having Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers in order to determine the distance traveled on the tolled road network - without the use of any roadside infrastructure.

US Nobel Economics Prize winner William Vickrey was the first to propose a system of electronic tolling for the Washington Metropolitan Area in 1959.

Italy was the first country to deploy a full electronic toll collection system in motorways at national scale in 1989.

In 1959, Nobel Economics Prize winner William Vickrey was the first to propose a similar system of electronic tolling for the Washington Metropolitan Area.

"[4] In the 1960s and the 1970s, free flow tolling was tested with fixed transponders at the undersides of the vehicles and readers, which were located under the surface of the highway.

Mario Alvisi and included a full operational real time Classification of Vehicles and Enforcement via cameras interconnected with the PRA (Public Register of Automobiles) via a network of more than 3.000 Km.

Telepass introduced the concept of ETC Interoperability because interconnected 24 different Italian motorway operators allowing users to travel between different concession areas and paying only at the end of the journey.

Norway now has 25 toll roads operating with electronic fee collection (EFC), as the Norwegian technology is called (see AutoPASS).

The ETC 2.0 system provides a variety of advantages to road users through information provision services, such as congestion avoidance, safe driving support, etc., and route information collected by the road side devices and greatly contribute to ITS promotion.As of March 2018, in Japan, a total of approximately 2.61 million vehicles are equipped with devices compliant with the ETC 2.0.

However, in other areas such as the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, and at various locations in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Texas, cars can travel through electronic lanes at full speed.

[citation needed] Enforcement is accomplished by a combination of a camera which takes a picture of the car and a radio frequency keyed computer which searches for a drivers window/bumper mounted transponder to verify and collect payment.

Some toll road operators – including Sydney's Sydney Harbour Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel and Westlink M7, Melbourne's CityLink and Eastlink, and Brisbane's Gateway Motorway – encourage use of such tags, and apply an additional vehicle matching fee to vehicles without a tag.

A similar device in France, called Liber-T for light vehicles and TIS-PL for HGVs, is accepted on all toll roads in the country.

Since 2016, National Highway Authority of Pakistan implemented electronic toll collection on its motorway network using a RFID-based tag called the "M-TAG".

[14] The most revolutionary application of ETC is in the urban context of congested cities, allowing to charge tolls without vehicles having to slow down.

This application made feasible to concession to the private sector the construction and operation of urban freeways, as well as the introduction or improvement of congestion pricing,[15] as a policy to restrict auto travel in downtown areas.

The United Arab Emirates implemented in 2007 a similar road toll collection in Dubai, called Salik.

Congestion pricing or urban toll schemes were implemented to enter the downtown area using ETC technology and/or cameras and video recognition technology to get the plate numbers in several cities around the world: urban tolling in Norway's three major cities:[17] Singapore in 1974 introduced the world's first successful congestion pricing scheme implemented with manual control (see also Singapore's Area Licensing Scheme),[18] and was refined in 1998 (see Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing), Bergen (1986), Oslo (1990), and Trondheim (1991) (see Trondheim Toll Scheme); Rome in 2001 as an upgrade to the manual zone control system implemented in 1998;[19][20] London in 2003 and extended in 2007 (see London congestion charge); Stockholm, tested in 2006 and made the charge permanent in 2007 (see Stockholm congestion tax); and in Valletta, the capital city of Malta, since May 2007.

The charge would be combined with other traffic reduction implementations, allowing money to be raised for public transit improvements and bike and pedestrian enhancements.

The highway administration may alter fares (e.g. remove the per diem) during peak travel seasons to facilitate distribution of congestion to midnight hours.

Non-subscribers are billed by license plate recognition and mail statements, or can make a payment at chain convenient store at third day after vehicle travel, since a subscription to ETC is not mandated by law.

To avoid the need for transponders, some systems, notably the 407 ETR (Express Toll Route) near Toronto and the A282 (M25) Dartford Crossing in the United Kingdom, use automatic number plate recognition.

Systems that incorporate a manual review stage have much lower error rates, but require a continuing staffing expense.

One such example application is Alabama Freedom Pass mobile, used to link customer accounts at sites operated by American Roads LLC.

The app communicates in real time with the facility transaction processing system to identify and debit customer accounts or bill a major credit card.

However, the expense of police patrols makes their use on a continuous basis impractical, such that the probability of being stopped is likely to be low enough as to be an insufficient deterrent [citation needed].

Automatic number plate recognition, while rarely used as the primary vehicle identification method, is more commonly used in violation enforcement.

Technically speaking, using ecash and other modern cryptography methods, one could design systems that do not know where individuals are, but can still collect and enforce tolls.

[49][50] From the legal standpoint, a proper privacy framework can pose strict bounds on the data retention and rights to access and utilization, especially after the tolls have been successfully paid.