EGNOS advances GNSS-based road tolling case
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Satellite navigation services have already had an enormous impact on the way we drive. EGNOS and Galileo will be major assets for European transport operators as they push forward new improvements in road infrastructure and traffic control.
ASECAP promotes benefits of road tolling. ©Peter Gutierrez
Addressing participants at the ASECAP conference in Brussels, GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides stressed the powerful impact of satellite navigation (GNSS) technologies on road transport. "Already 30% of all cars sold today are equipped with a GNSS receiver, and that figure will rise. And we know that more and more the computer chips in cars will themselves incorporate GNSS capabilities. So satellite navigation is quickly becoming an integral part of our road transport system."
What's more, he added, decision-makers are taking a positive stance on GNSS technologies, providing for a very favourable regulatory framework and posing few obstacles to their rapid integration.
Who is ASECAP?
The Association Europeenne des Concessionnaires d’Autoroutes et d’Ouvrages a’ Peage or ASECAP is the European professional association of toll road operators. It includes 16 full members – France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Norway, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Denmark, Slovenia and Ireland – and four associate members – Germany, Morocco, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Its mission is to promote tolling as the most efficient tool to finance the construction, operation and maintenance of motorways and other major road infrastructures.
"Europe has gained a massive amount of credibility with the successful launch of EGNOS," des Dorides said, "our first foray into the world of GNSS. We are now members of a very small club of global satellite navigation players, including the United States and Russia.
"What EGNOS brings to the table is a higher level of precision and integrity, and Galileo will add further accuracy and signal availability, especially in urban situations." Importantly, he said, these systems will mean a high level of certainty about vehicle location, providing authentication data equivalent to a "legal stamp".
This is where the European GNSS community and the road tolling community, represented by ASECAP, have a lot in common. Who is on a given road, for how long and over what distance is precisely what the road tolling industry wants to know, and GNSS systems such as EGNOS and Galileo can provide this information with a very high degree of reliability.
And the road tolling industry seems to be catching on
Also speaking at the ASECAP event, Luigi Giacalone, CEO of Autostrade Tech, discussed his company's response to the ECOTAX call for tenders.
ECOTAX is the Heavy Good Vehicle tolling project of the French Ministry of Transport. It will cover 15 000 km of roads, making it one of the largest tolling schemes in Europe, and it is expected to generate over €2 billion in revenues over the length of the concession.
Giacalone confirmed that the system proposed by a consortium led by Autostrade would be GNSS-based. Furthermore, "The 'on-board unit' that will provide critical vehicle location data will be both EGNOS- and Galileo-ready," he stated.
Can GNSS-based road charging really work?
The EC-funded GINA project has designed and tested a system for accurate location of vehicles with respect to 'geo-objects' and for recording the distance they travel, laying the groundwork for a fairer system of GNSS-only road pricing.
GINA partners say the project shows that GNSS and EGNOS present economically viable and fair solutions to help reduce the negative impact of road transport, including congestion and pollution.
The GINA project has also developed a business plan for potential European Electronic Tolling Service providers entering the market. The plan was presented for the first time at ASECAP event in Brussels.
Closing arguments
Proving the business case is now seen as crucial to the further acceptance of GNSS in the road charging sector. Philippe Hamet of the GNSS Applications Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry presented some hard data collected in studies of real GNSS-based road applications.
"We have been evaluating business cases for EGNOS in real motorway operations," he said, "and our initial results are encouraging. We see improvements in performance, in particular with respect to position confidence level, as compared to non-EGNOS-capable schemes."
Pressing the case for EGNOS and Galileo, the GSA's Fiammetta Diani said, "We believe satellite navigation systems can be real enablers of value-added services in road transport. Studies like the GINA project, which we support, tell us that there is a real opportunity here. Our data confirm the long-term profitability of a European Electronic Service Provider who will base its value proposition on GNSS-enabled services.