At the ASECAP conference in Athens in May 2014, the GSA did its best to convince the road-tolling community of the benefits of European satellite-based navigation, including Galileo and EGNOS.

Speaking during the ASECAP session on tolling and concessions, the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Alberto Fernandez Wyttenbach explained where we are and where we are going with respect to GNSS for road user charging (RUC).

“This is one of the key market segments and applications for GNSS,” he said. “Our GSA market report shows road transport is the main market for GNSS in future. We project that shipments of GNSS for RUC in particular will grow yearly by an average of around 30%, until 2022.”

GNSS chipset and receiver manufacturers are revving up for a multi-constellation GNSS universe that includes both GPS and Galileo, but also the Russian Glonass system and China’s Beidou.

The benefits of this powerful technology are clear, said Wyttenbach: “Flexibility is a major advantage. GNSS can be used for charging by time, distance, vehicle type, emissions, etc. The technology allows for quick and easy extensibility – new sections can be added quickly with only the back office needing to act.”

Low transaction costs, high revenue potential, improved traffic management and environmental benefits – including no roadside infrastructure – all point to the good sense of putting GNSS to work for toll charging.

A Solution that’s Catching On

Operators are getting the message, Wyttenbach said. “Switzerland was the first country to use GNSS in a RUC system, and Germany was the first to implement such a system based solely on GNSS. Now, in France, we have the hybrid Ecotaxe DSRC-interoperable tolling system.”

Belgium, he noted, has also recently decided to mandate the use of GNSS in its upcoming road-charging scheme for heavy vehicles.

“The Hungarian GNSS-based scheme has also been a great success,” Wyttenbach said. “The second-generation ‘HU-GO’ system started operations on time, within six months of the unexpected withdrawal of the main industrial partner.”

It took just 2.5 months to implement the new Hungarian operation, with 6501 km of tolled roads, for only €75 million invested.

Perhaps the most impressive example of GNSS-based tolling success is that of Slovakia, which managed to increase its network operations in 2014 by 7.5 times, adding 15,315 km of new tolled roads and 3,162 new tolled road sections in just three months - an amazing demonstration of the flexibility and extensibility Wyttenbach described in his presentation.

“Would any of this have been possible without GNSS?,” he asked. The answer, of course, is an emphatic ‘no’.

Part of the job of the GSA is to help people in the road tolling community, but also among the public, to understand the benefits of GNSS.

“GNSS is becoming the technology of choice for new free-flow tolling systems,” Wyttenbach concluded. “The main advantages for tolling operators are coverage, availability and no direct installation costs. And hybrid solutions that can offer advantages to toll chargers are also on the table, including existing DSRC technologies.”

Joining Wyttenbach in Athens was his colleague Fiammetta Diani, who spoke during the session on deploying ITS in the real market world.

“We can make current GNSS-based services better,” Diani said. “As we add Galileo to the existing GNSS constellations we have more satellites in view, which means a more accurate final position and faster time-to-first-fix.

“The robustness of the position is also improved,” she continued. “Even if a satellite or an entire constellation is not available or providing incorrect data, a reasonable accuracy can continue to be provided.”

Authentication is another key feature of Galileo, explained Diani. It will be the only GNSS providing this feature, to ensure the signal in space is not subject to spoofing. Multipath resistance is another Galileo strength, and because Galileo uses the so-called data-less signal that improves the sensitivity threshold, it will achieve enhanced indoor penetration and improved performance in urban canyons.

There to Help You 

Diani also assured those who chose Galileo that they won’t be left out on a limb. “We are in the process of building up a new European GNSS Service Centre in Spain. It will offer 24/7 services, including providing an interface, a ‘help desk’, for users of the Galileo system and many other important services.

“Galileo compatibility is now commonplace in GNSS receivers,” Diani said. “eCall, the automatic emergency call system, will also be Galileo compatible.” So the world is coming on board. It’s not just about RUC: “European GNSS has a real contribution to make in terms of added value in many ITS applications, not only in road user charging but also ADAS-connected and autonomous vehicles, logistics, transport of dangerous and valuable goods, and digital tachographs.”

Last year’s ASECAP conference, held in Dubrovnik, saw the launch of the ASECAP-GSA Task Force. Aimed at ‘transforming challenges into opportunities’, specific goals included understanding how European GNSS technology can add value to road infrastructure operators and identifying concrete actions to be undertaken by key stakeholders to guide future trends.

“The roadmap we launched last year is still en route,” Diani said. Among the key current issues is optimisation of cross-border and multi-Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) enforcement. “We know ASECAP is motivated,” she concluded.

Finally, Diani presented the results of a recent European Research Project called ‘EasyOBU’, which looked at how EGNOS can be used in road-tolling operations to improve location information during loss-of-signal situations when GPS is unavailable.

“This is a simple, economically and commercially attractive solution,” said Diani. “It compensates 95% of signal outages and is ready for easy integration into various tolling systems.”

Just one more demonstration of the power and cost-effectiveness of the E-GNSS solution. The arguments just keep getting stronger.

 

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More information:

The European GNSS Agency
EGNOS and the Road Sector
ASECAP Days