With Eazy Pass electronic tolling to be added to the Northlink on the M1 in the coming weeks, National Toll Roads says it hopes eventually to remove barriers at Eazy Pass lanes.
Drivers using Eazy Pass, NTR's electronic tolling system, get an electronic unit or tag the size of a deck of cards for their windscreens. Using microwave technology, antenna scan tags as vehicles approach booths and, if in credit, deduct fees electronically and barriers swing up. At peak, Eazy Pass lanes can handle 1,000 cars per hour but removing barriers bring it to 1500, multiples of what its basket and manual lanes can take at the same time, says Tony McClafferty of NTR.
Removing the barriers is a while off though. Virtually all Eazy Pay-type lanes in Europe use barriers to ensure payment, though most toll operators want to change this, says Jack Opila, director of Intelligent Transport Systems at London-based Hyder Consulting.
Toll collection in other systems where there are no barriers has lead to all kinds of antics. According to the Economist, Transport for London, the city's congestion scheme operators, discovered about 100 "cloned cars", vehicles with illegal or copied number plates. In Switzerland where tolls apply on trucks using any of its roads, about 20 per cent of in-truck toll measurement devices didn't work properly and mainly in German trucks.
NTR says barrier-less electronic payment lanes are a couple of years away as they require legislation making it an offence to drive through them without Easy Pass or with an empty one, and to allow number plate photographing so fines can be issued. The Department of Transport is working on this.
Some EU countries have the legislation but still use barriers as their registration databases might not be accurate or because there is no system to pursue foreign drivers who nip through electronic payment lanes.
"Ireland's car registration system is good and above average for the EU," says Opila whose firm operates as McCarthy Hyder here. "Unlike mainland Europe, less than 2 per cent of traffic here is international though it may be using the M1 and the Dublin toll plazas."
West Link gets 100,000 cars a day and is thought to be the busiest toll plaza of its size in Europe. Currently 60,000 people use Eazy Pass in Dublin. About 22,000 of these are peak-hour drivers so barrier-free lanes should help.
The ultimate in open road tolling, says Opila, is to eliminate booths altogether and deduct payment electronically from windscreen tags while vehicles are driving at normal motorway speeds in any lane.
This happens in Melbourne and Toronto. Sensors and cameras mounted on overhead structures read the tags and pre-paid passes on windscreens, and photograph number plates for fines.
Germany's proposed open road electronic tolling system for trucks will use a similar concept with satellite technology which the EU favours as its Galileo will be fully operational in 2008.
NTR envisages always having a mixture of electronic and cash payment to cater for drivers who use the plaza only rarely. For the moment, it plans to better highlight dedicated Eazy Pass lanes. All lanes can scan Eazy Pass but those exclusively for Eazy Pass are to be painted yellow.
NTR holds the West Link licence until 2015 and pays the Government a fee from the near €1 million it earns there each week. Revenues from the East Link, where NTR's licence is to 2020, and from the North Link which has 20,000 motorists daily, are shared between NTR and other organisations involved in the projects.
McCafferty admits it's been a positive investment for all. Tolling also generates €23 million annually from the Government and the three Dublin toll bridges built for €110 million at no cost to the state will revert to it.
"When tolling was being established here," says Opila, "it could have been viewed as quite high risk. Initially costs had to be scratched out of 18,000-20,000 cars a day. Bridge maintenance is very expensive. Few could have predicted the congestion on Dublin roads and today's toll user levels make it lucrative."
But despite of or because of the notable bottlenecks, some argue the fee is too high. "Apart from road maintenance, tolls are a way of diverting traffic to other nearby roads. If it was completely free, even more would flock there,? says Opila. Scary thought.
How others countrires get it right
GERMANY: GPS satellites will calculate charges for commercial trucks from next January. Readings from GPS microwave beacons and in-truck tachographs will be combined by an on-board unit to calculate charges. Mobile phone equipment will transmit billing data for processing. Nearly 300 steel gantries with cameras spanning motorways - and mobile toll police performing spot checks - will be put in place to catch evader.
From January, trucks on autobahns are to be charged at least 12 cents per km depending on size and exhaust volume. At the moment, they can speed along the autobahn uncharged since the government prematurely scrapped its old vignette system in the hope the new system would be up and running by earlier 2003.
The toll collection companies, DaimlerChrysler and Deutsche Telekom, have guaranteed that a scaled-down version of the system will be operational by January 1st next. Failure to comply could result in a fine of up to €780 million.
AUSTRIA: In January Austria started a fully electronic free-flow multi-lane system based on microwave technology (5.8Ghz). An in-truck box on the truck windscreen, the size of an Eazy Pass tag, sends microwave signals indicating location. The truck is scanned along the route and its distance noted and vehicle charged on distance and weight. The driver can pay at any of over 800 pay points before or after a journey. If the toll is not recorded or a false one is made, details of the truck and driver are held and payment and fines demanded. Trucks can also register on the internet and pay at one of the points. Cameras read number plates and fibre optic lines send information to centralised centres to check against the database of registered trucks.
SWITZERLAND: The system is a mix of satellite technology and impulses sent from trucks' on-board units (OBU). It counts kilometres through impulses from tachometers and stores data on an electronic chip card. This is sent by post or internet to the toll control centre and a bill is issued based on the readings of the card. GPS calculates distance and checks that tachographs or cables to odometers are not tampered. Coloured lights on the OBU tell police if equipment has been tampered with. Trucks pay tolls on all streets and roads.
FRANCE/ITALY/SPAIN/BELGIUM/BRITAIN/PORTUGAL: Like Ireland, antennae or beacons at toll stations use wireless technology to read Eazy Pass type cards or tags in cars and causes the barrier to lift. Credit may be stored on cards like our system or payment debited from drivers' bank account at the end of the month which is most common in mainland Europe.
AUSTRALIA/CANADA: In Melbourne and Toronto large gantries with beacons sensors and cameras span roads. The beacons read the in car/truck tags and deduct payment. There are no barriers. Cars pass through at highway speeds. Cameras read number plates of those without the tags or pre-purchased day passes and the information is used to chase payment and impose fines.