Road user charging

Electronic road tolls can help to keep traffic flowing during the influx of people caused by a major international event

One of the biggest problems in modern cities is the crippling effect of heavy traffic. Governments and local authorities are experimenting around the world with congestion charges, higher parking fees, cheaper public transport and various other schemes. But one of the most promising ideas for reducing heavy traffic could be road user charging; not least when a huge event like the Olympic Games is in town.

Overhead electronic toll systems are becoming more common
in Europe and the West

Norwegian firm Q-Free are have installed electronic toll collection (ETC) systems in countries as diverse as Croatia, Greece, Australia and Chile. They also brought their technology to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Developed in partnership with Italian transport operator SITAF, the SI-PASS is a two-piece tag consisting of an on-board unit (OBU), called a Transponder Mobipass, and a Smart Card. The Smart Card itself is a readable card consisting of a microchip with a double interface (contact and contactless) that uses tag and beacon technology – a system where a charge card mounted on the windscreen is “read” by roadside beacons. Operated by microwave dedicated short-range communications (DSCR) at 5.8GHz, the system is compatible with European standards.

Operation of SI-PASS is based on two very simple mechanisms. When the card is used with the transponder it allows motorway barriers to be opened from a distance without the need to stop at motorway tolls. On its own, the card can be read by a scanner, enabling the user to automatically pay for public city transport (buses, trams and underground) in addition to a large number of car parks.

For the Turin Winter Olympics, the card was also used to pay for ski-passes and had the capacity to gain access to other events.

Oddvar Solemsli, marketing director for Q-Free said: “The Turin project to protect a historic city and to keep traffic moving during the few weeks of the Olympic Games is considered as a flagship model of how an integrated transport model can work.

“The Smart Card is very much like the Oyster card that is already employed across London. The difference here is that it can automatically debit users as they travel around a city. Unlike the congestion charging zone in London, users will not have to make individual payments for each journey they make and can use the card across a number of mobility services,” he says.

The SI-PASS system kept Turin’s streets free from traffic
jams during the 2006 Winter Olympics, helping the host
city’s overall impression

Presently the SI-PASS system is in use on the A32 Turin-Bardonecchia motorway, the Frejeus tunnel and Turin bypasses, the GTT public city transport services and the GTT park-and-ride car parks. Smart Cards can be purchased at a number of locations around the city, including the A32 motorway Service Centre at Avigliana, at the Sitaf-Susa information booth, at the A43 motorway toll barrier in Saint Michel de Maurienne, and at the Portanova railway station and Caselle airport outside Turin.

Q-Free marketing manager Marit Hammer says: “Athletes, organisers and visitors equipped their vehicles with an on-board unit and an electronic Smart Card to pay for access to special lanes on the tolled motorway approach to the city.”

“The project was a great success and traffic flow was excellent – no queues at all. The project fulfilled all our expectations,” he says.

The company saw a good return from their system. “Initial results have been very positive,” says Hammer. “At the motorway toll plazas the free-flowing traffic, no longer hampered by queuing, has resulted in a 90 per cent recorded reduction in CO2 pollution levels.

“In total, more than 6,000 SI-PASSes have been purchased at retail outlets, and more than EUR 1m has been generated in revenues for the city of Turin so far," he says.

Solemsli can shed further light on how the partnership with the Italians initiated: “Q-Free was contacted one and a half years ago when the operator of the highway between Turin and Bardonecchia on the French border, SITAF, realised they had a problem on their hands.”

This was no exaggeration. The highway is one of three major traffic gates to France and ends in the Frejus Tunnel, which is the preferred route by many heavy goods vehicles due to its focus on tunnel safety and because it has more space than the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

“The traffic is so intense that if you stand and observe the scene at one of the toll plazas you sometimes feel that you are watching a train rather than trucks,” says Solemsli. “SITAF understood that when the numerous vehicles of the Olympic family and hoards of spectators were added to the traffic, queuing would become a major problem.”

Together with SITAF, their partners GTT (Turin’s public transport company) and ATIVA (the operators of the ring road around Turin), Q-Free proposed a novel idea that would connect private and public transport in a single system and would allow the users a non-stop service at the toll plazas, easy parking and admission to public transport. This was solved using the Transponder Mobipass combined with the Smart Card.

“The OBU can be seen as a modem or ‘loudspeaker’ for the card when passing the toll gate,” says Solemsli. “Now the Games have finished, we can confirm that the system worked perfectly and that there were never any Olympic queues. I believe that the system can be expanded to improve mobility in and around Turin and throughout the rest of Europe as it is based on the European CEN standard.”

If the scheme proves to be a continuing success, perhaps such projects will become more widespread globally as cities seek to deal with the ever-growing problem of traffic.