The Autostrade led Ecomouv consortium is developing the next big system of truck tolling likely to be introduced in Europe – France’s ‘Eco-tax’. Jon Masters reports.
Since October last year, a consortium of companies has been working on developing the technological and administrative systems necessary for a national system of truck tolling in France. Eco-tax, France’s truck toll, is not necessarily going to be implemented. The Ecomouv consortium has been set up as a long term concessionaire, but so far only holds a contract for delivering the Eco-tax systems to a point of being ready for use. “The state still has the power to decide whether or not to make the service operational, so it may not happen immediately after the system is delivered,” says road tolling director Antoine Caput of Thales Transportation – a principal technology partner and shareholder of Ecomouv.
Virtually all of the necessary legislation for eco-tax – 99.9% of it, according to Caput – is in place, however. Eco-tax also carries the benefit of a political case built partly on the promise of reducing numbers of heavy vehicles using rural routes.
According to Caput, the principal complaints against truck tolling, that it serves only as an additional tax, as a means for generating revenue to the detriment of businesses, are negated by the way Eco-tax will be used. “When creating a new tax, of course the aim is to raise money, but truck operators will be able to receive rebates and make savings elsewhere,” he says. “If a haulage company is well managed, it will be able to reduce its overall costs. At present all pay the same taxes regardless of distance travelled and trucks using smaller roads pay less. Is that fair? The aim is not just to raise money, but to also increase fairness and most importantly, to create a tool for encouraging better use of France’s roads overall.”
Influencing route selection
Eco-tax is being developed to charge all national and foreign vehicles over 3.5t for use of the entirety of the country’s principal highway network currently not tolled, plus a certain number of secondary roads. “As soon as trucks start to use smaller roads as a way of avoiding payment of Eco-tax, it is likely that more of the secondary network will be included and tolled,” says Caput. By this means – by charging for use of alternative routes – the French Government and Ecomouv will encourage truck drivers and operators to make use of the country’s comprehensive Autoroute network of tolled motorways wherever possi ble.
“The main aims are to reduce the environmental impact of heavy vehicles by influencing operators’ choice of routes, thereby improving the distribution of traffic across networks and a better balance of freight transport between road and rail as well,” Caput says. “The Eco-tax initiative is also being viewed as a way of improving the productivity of logistics and freight services; making operations more efficient with less partial or empty loads. Then there will be less trucks on the roads over short to medium distances.”
The technology of Eco-tax will be a hybrid system of on-board units (OBU) calculating position by GNSS satellite tracking and communicating this to a central office via GPRS. Enforcement of the tax will use DSRC micro wave equipment in mobile automatic detection cabinets. Around 100 of these will be moved around over indiscriminate periods between 500 enforcement sites.
Keeping it simple
There will be no gantries erected for collection or enforcement. France’s 15,000km of principal roads will be divided up into 4,000 virtual sections, each representing a
possible bypass of an Autoroute journey. When a truck passes the mid-point of a section, a toll will be applied with the
price depending on the length of the section and the category of the vehicle. The truck’s OBU will register the position to a central back office system which will apply the charge to the user’s pre-registered
Eco-tax account.
“It’s a simple system and we believe it will prove efficient,” says Caput. “The detail of the pricing is yet to be finalised and we do not expect this to be decided until the run up to operations in 2013, but we can confirm that there is an intention to introduce a peak time variation in the fullness of time.”
There will be two types of account. Users can select to be ‘subscribers’ to an EETS (European electronic tolling service) account with billing post-journey, or non subscribers will register a pre-pay Eco-tax account which must be credited to authorise the user to drive on French roads. This way, by providing an EETS option, Ecomouv will effectively help to start real interoperability between countries’ toll systems, acting as a pseudo EETS initially. The ultimate plan is for subscribers to EETS suppliers in any country to receive OBUs and accounts applicable to all other countries’ tolled networks.
“The target is to make Eco-tax the first of an interoperable European network of truck tolls under new standards now in place. Toll Collect of Germany is being asked to evolve to this standard and others are expected to do the same. Ultimately, it is hoped the majority of Eco-tax payments will be processed through EETS,” Caput says. “There will be nothing to force operators to subscribe to EETS, but France will offer discounted tolls for subscribers.”
Since October last year, a consortium of companies has been working on developing the technological and administrative systems necessary for a national system of truck tolling in France. Eco-tax, France’s truck toll, is not necessarily going to be implemented. The Ecomouv consortium has been set up as a long term concessionaire, but so far only holds a contract for delivering the Eco-tax systems to a point of being ready for use. “The state still has the power to decide whether or not to make the service operational, so it may not happen immediately after the system is delivered,” says road tolling director Antoine Caput of Thales Transportation – a principal technology partner and shareholder of Ecomouv.
Virtually all of the necessary legislation for eco-tax – 99.9% of it, according to Caput – is in place, however. Eco-tax also carries the benefit of a political case built partly on the promise of reducing numbers of heavy vehicles using rural routes.
According to Caput, the principal complaints against truck tolling, that it serves only as an additional tax, as a means for generating revenue to the detriment of businesses, are negated by the way Eco-tax will be used. “When creating a new tax, of course the aim is to raise money, but truck operators will be able to receive rebates and make savings elsewhere,” he says. “If a haulage company is well managed, it will be able to reduce its overall costs. At present all pay the same taxes regardless of distance travelled and trucks using smaller roads pay less. Is that fair? The aim is not just to raise money, but to also increase fairness and most importantly, to create a tool for encouraging better use of France’s roads overall.”
Influencing route selection
Eco-tax is being developed to charge all national and foreign vehicles over 3.5t for use of the entirety of the country’s principal highway network currently not tolled, plus a certain number of secondary roads. “As soon as trucks start to use smaller roads as a way of avoiding payment of Eco-tax, it is likely that more of the secondary network will be included and tolled,” says Caput. By this means – by charging for use of alternative routes – the French Government and Ecomouv will encourage truck drivers and operators to make use of the country’s comprehensive Autoroute network of tolled motorways wherever possi ble.
“The main aims are to reduce the environmental impact of heavy vehicles by influencing operators’ choice of routes, thereby improving the distribution of traffic across networks and a better balance of freight transport between road and rail as well,” Caput says. “The Eco-tax initiative is also being viewed as a way of improving the productivity of logistics and freight services; making operations more efficient with less partial or empty loads. Then there will be less trucks on the roads over short to medium distances.”
The technology of Eco-tax will be a hybrid system of on-board units (OBU) calculating position by GNSS satellite tracking and communicating this to a central office via GPRS. Enforcement of the tax will use DSRC micro wave equipment in mobile automatic detection cabinets. Around 100 of these will be moved around over indiscriminate periods between 500 enforcement sites.
Keeping it simple
There will be no gantries erected for collection or enforcement. France’s 15,000km of principal roads will be divided up into 4,000 virtual sections, each representing a
possible bypass of an Autoroute journey. When a truck passes the mid-point of a section, a toll will be applied with the
price depending on the length of the section and the category of the vehicle. The truck’s OBU will register the position to a central back office system which will apply the charge to the user’s pre-registered
Eco-tax account.
“It’s a simple system and we believe it will prove efficient,” says Caput. “The detail of the pricing is yet to be finalised and we do not expect this to be decided until the run up to operations in 2013, but we can confirm that there is an intention to introduce a peak time variation in the fullness of time.”
There will be two types of account. Users can select to be ‘subscribers’ to an EETS (European electronic tolling service) account with billing post-journey, or non subscribers will register a pre-pay Eco-tax account which must be credited to authorise the user to drive on French roads. This way, by providing an EETS option, Ecomouv will effectively help to start real interoperability between countries’ toll systems, acting as a pseudo EETS initially. The ultimate plan is for subscribers to EETS suppliers in any country to receive OBUs and accounts applicable to all other countries’ tolled networks.
“The target is to make Eco-tax the first of an interoperable European network of truck tolls under new standards now in place. Toll Collect of Germany is being asked to evolve to this standard and others are expected to do the same. Ultimately, it is hoped the majority of Eco-tax payments will be processed through EETS,” Caput says. “There will be nothing to force operators to subscribe to EETS, but France will offer discounted tolls for subscribers.”
