Survey of Technologies for the Implementation of National‐scale Road User Charging

Abstract

This paper surveys the technologies available for constructing a pervasive, national‐scale road pricing system. It defines the different types of road pricing, the methods by which a vehicle’s position can be determined, and then examines possible pricing regimes in the context of their technological requirements and implications. The issue of enforcement and the distribution of pricing policies are considered, and further complexities are outlined. An examination of the security aspects of such systems is made, focusing particularly on the need to ensure privacy using technological, rather than solely procedural, methods. The survey concludes that a pervasive, national‐scale deployment is unlikely to be technically achievable in the short‐term.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jonathan Davies and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript, Ramsey Farragher for his expertise in mobile handset location techniques, and Andy Hopper for his support of the work.

Notes

1. This paper uses the terms interchangeably, though some authors distinguish between them (Walker, 2005).

2. See http://www.dartfordrivercrossing.co.uk/dart‐tag/

3. See http://www.ezpass.com/

4. See http://www.citylink.vic.gov.au/

5. See http://www.91expresslanes.com/

6. See http://www.westlinkm7.com.au/

7. Multilateration is the calculation of the position of an object by measuring the time difference of arrival of a signal that the object emits at three or more separate receivers.

8. Note that it might not be economically viable to charge for countryside roads, depending on the technology used. However, this might push traffic onto them. Any scheme should take this issue into account.

9. See http://www.trafficmaster.co.uk/

10. See http://www.onemotoring.com.sg/publish/onemotoring/en/traffic/traffic_management0/intelligent_transport_systems/traffic_scan.html

11. A situation in which an attacker floods a server with a large number of requests, causing there to be very limited resources for serving requests from legitimate users.

12. In the case of mobile telephony and debit cards, alternative technologies do exist, e.g. phone systems have been designed with anonymizing proxies (Kesdogan et al., 1996). However, they have not been made widely available as an alternative.