Sep 30, 2006
WORLD ROADS CONFERENCE
Distance-based ERP system likely here
This will be more accurate as those who cover more distance will be adding more to congestion
By Christopher Tan, Senior Correspondent
CONGESTION pricing took centrestage at the World Roads Conference, with the auditorium packed whenever papers on the subject were presented.
At the opening session on Wednesday, 250 participants from 20 countries who congregated at the Singapore Expo learnt of how the fate of a road-pricing plan in Stockholm hangs in the balance because of politics and bureaucracy.
And at the closing session yesterday, Mr Jay Walder of Transport for London - the Land Transport Authority's (LTA) equivalent - shared London's success story.
London and Singapore - the pioneers of congestion pricing - are now working on the next generation of systems. The excitement here centres on satellite-based technology, which not only has limitless 'scalability', but also offers applications that go far beyond Electronic Road Pricing (ERP).
Unlike physical toll booths, gantries or London's camera-reliant system, an eye-in-the-sky method, allows any government to price any stretch of any road with charges that correspond with actual traffic conditions. It also allows finer categorisation of users.
For instance, the German truck toll system - the world's first large-scale application of satellite-tracked road pricing - varies levies according to vehicle weight and size, emission standard and distance covered.
Distance-based charging looks likely when Singapore implements the next generation of ERP. It is a more accurate system, as vehicles which currently enter the Restricted Zone and drive around (like taxis and commercial vehicles) contribute more to congestion than the office worker who drives in and parks his car for 10 hours or so.
And if environmental concerns come to the fore, the in-vehicle unit can be hooked up to the car's computer to start charging the moment the engine is started. So people who sit in their cars reading the papers with the engine running and the air-conditioner on could forgo more than wasted fuel.
Indeed, the LTA yesterday presented a new IU that can be used to charge for street-side parking. How this exactly works and when the new unit will be launched is still up in the air, but the device will be smarter (and smaller) than the current IU. It will show both the charge and the balance, and it can automatically top up when it detects a card is low on funds.
The potential is nearly limitless.
In Europe, traffic management company Satellic has tied up with an insurer to test a motor insurance that varies its premium according to the way the policyholder drives.
'The faster you go, the more you pay,' quipped Satellic business development director Klaus Albert, adding that the trial has been quite successful and is closely watched by the industry.
The possibilities of pay-as-you- drive - which is the basic tenet of congestion-pricing - are infinite with satellite technology (backed up with plenty of smart software). But how will such sophisticated applications go down with end-users? There will be concerns that the system could be turned into the ultimate policing tool. And what implications would such an intrusive concept have on privacy?
Vendors said security measures can be put in place to prevent information leakage, or data can be stored by a neutral third party, or the IU can be fitted with an 'off' button which when activated imposes a stiff charge but renders the user untrackable.
But Mr Bernard Lamy, who is with French transport systems group Thales, said that while measures can be put in place, 'somebody still has access to the information'.
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