A thought on tolling - Managing Director, Bob Lees
All-Electronic Fee Collection (AEFC)
from Bob Lees, Managing Director of DCS
The move to all-electronic fee collection should be encouraging tolling authorities to look again at whether their vehicle classification criteria and technologies remain at all appropriate.
The increasing use of AEFC is resulting in an ever-greater number of tolled facilities from which human participation in the transaction process has been removed. Free-flowing AEFC is being pursued by many tolling authorities for several reasons all of which make perfect sense: economics, safety and the environment.
This move to AEFC takes out of the equation a very useful, and certainly the most adaptable, detection and classification technology: the Mk.1 Human Eyeball. AEFC makes technology the primary means of classification and thereby hangs the problem; that which the aforesaid Mk.1 Eyeball can detect can be difficult in some cases and outright impossible in others for consistent and reliable automated detection. The key change when moving to AEFC is the shift from technology confirming the operator's classification to technology being the only form of classification.
In transitioning to AEFC from a traditional, barrier-based operation, there is a real need to address two main questions: 'Is my method of classification reasonable?' and 'Can it be measured by electronic means?'
Some parameters, such as the number of axles or a vehicle's height, are readily ascertainable. Others, such as how its rear doors open and close, can be inferred electronically but not necessarily to an adequate degree of accuracy. Dual tyres, often a classification criterion, have long been difficult to discern and are more so in an open-road environment. It is, however, possible to combine some features, such as axle number and vehicle height. It is also possible, though difficult, to accomplish front and rear imaging, classification of some physical characteristics and tag reading from a single gantry. If the classification scheme is to be changed to accommodate AEFC then it would be wise to make the change to the existing system first to avoid major confusion to the customer.
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Published in Idris Summer 2009
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