That sweet toll sound

Transcription

1 That sweet toll sound

2 casestudy In the US state of Washington, a traffic control project that is unique in North America will be given the green light to start at the beginning of The project in question is a road-traffic pilot scheme in the greater Seattle area for use-dependent road pricing based on a satellitesupported toll system that was successfully tested and approved in the second and third quarters of Within the framework of the pilot project, the vehicles of around 500 voluntary participants will be fitted with on-board units that will record every trip made. The position of each vehicle at any particular time will be determined with the help of the Global Positioning System. For every trip that is recorded, a fee will be charged, depending on the road that is used and the time of day. The aim of the project is to find out what effects roaduse fees, that vary according to time and distance, have on driving behavior. The long-term objective is to influence the amount of traffic on overloaded routes specifically and locally through flexible road-pricing. Greater Seattle covers an area of around 16,300km 2, with 3.4 million people living and working in the vicinity of Puget Sound. The region is an important industrial location and the home of large corporations such as Microsoft and Boeing. Its position between Puget Sound and the Cascade Range sets natural limits to the expansion of settlements and roads to the east and the west. The main traffic routes are often overloaded and further increases in traffic are forecast for the next 30 years. In the Seattle conurbation, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is responsible for developing, planning and designing traffic projects as well as for allocating the funds that are needed for such schemes. The PSRC is a coalition of local communities, counties, harbors and regional authorities. Its tasks also include the analysis of future traffic developments and the selection of suitable strategies for traffic control. In many cases, there are not enough funds for building new roads or, sometimes, even for maintaining the existing infrastructure. In the US, the financing of traffic projects with gasoline tax has been a mainstay. Yet the income has not kept pace with demand and general economic growth. Another problem is that the taxation of fuel consumption does not allow for traffic control; road users in countryside regions where cars are indispensable have to pay the same amount as city roadusers, for whom there are a series of alternatives such as public transportation by Stefan Höpfel, Siemens AG, Germany Intelligent ways for Seattle That sweet toll sound A pilot-project for North America s first satellitesupported road pricing system will start at the beginning of The electronic toll collection bell has rung in Puget Sound

3 casestudy or the formation of car pools. Marking certain fixed routes as toll roads has been usual for a long time in the US and also on the freeways of diverse European countries. But it is only a limited solution to this universal problem. It is not just that new constructions and buildings are needed, entry and exit roads have to be equipped with new toll stations. All this, of course, costs a great deal of money. Another difficulty is that, frequently, such toll routes are simply avoided by drivers. The traffic moves to alternative roads, which, in turn, become overloaded quickly as well. Requirements for a toll system The PSRC therefore needed to study an alternative that enables fees to be charged on particular roads whenever it is deemed necessary. The toll should not be restricted to roads such as freeways, where there are no intersections. It should also be possible to vary the fees for use depending on the time of day or the weekday. This would make it easier, for example, to channel commuter traffic. The aim is to influence road users choice of a route by imposing suitable fees so that, at certain times of the day, busy roads are avoided and traffic is distributed more evenly. Thus, better use of the existing network may be ensured. These requirements as outlined can be met at low cost but only with the help of a satellite-supported toll system. The Puget Sound Regional Council therefore decided to study such a system and to subject it to extensive tests during a pilot A central requirement of the PSRC was to create the system using existing, off-theshelf solutions and without the necessity for additional construction measures Figure 1: The Puget Sound Region (yellow/ orange areas are Road Usage Charging zones) project. Another objective was to investigate the behavior of the road users participating in the scheme. At the beginning of 2004, the PSRC gave Siemens I&S Intelligent Traffic Systems an order to set up a toll system for an initial 500 voluntary participants. Satellite-supported toll system A central requirement of the PSRC was to create the toll system using existing, off-the-shelf solutions and without the necessity for additional construction measures. The only part of the system that is visible to the driver is the On- Board Unit (OBU) mounted on the dashboard inside the vehicle. A comparable OBU will also be used in the German toll system from 2005 onwards. With the help of the Global Positioning System (GPS), the position of a vehicle can be detected in real time with an accuracy of just a few meters and the OBU uses a visual signal to tell the driver when he is entering a section of road that is subject to a toll. The OBU also acts as a fee counter: at any time, the driver can display the costs for the stretch of road he has just driven on. For this purpose, the OBUs communicate with a management center via GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication). For cases where the connection is broken off for example in a tunnel or between skyscrapers provisions have also been made. All toll-charging routes are stored in the OBU itself. What the OBU shows on its display is based on these stored routes and on the relevant fee information. As long as the Seattle CANADA USA connection is maintained or once it has been restored, the OBU sends a signal reporting what routes have been driven on to the management center. Here, the vehicle s movements are stored and evaluated. In the management system, users accounts are also kept and monthly statements of road use are issued. The road users participating in the pilot project will be able to gain access to their user account via an Internet access protected by firewall. Siemens will process Who is doing what Toronto In the context of a program to collect fees for using roads, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is testing the suitability of electronic toll systems. The aim is to investigate the reaction of road users and the general public as well as the technical and economic aspects. One thing that it wants to clarify, for example, is whether and to what extent roads users will switch to alternative routes without a toll or to other means of transport. The investigation and the associated pilot project will be conducted in consultation with the Federal Highway Agency, the Department of Transport, various consultants, and a council for technical matters. Siemens is supplying the overall system and providing all the relevant services for the project. The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) is responsible for coordinating the project, developing the software and integrating all the systems and components and will also be providing technical support. The OBUs will be supplied by Siemens VDO whereas the installation work in the vehicles will be done by Car Toys. The airtime provider is Cingular Wireless, and business services are being provided by SBC E-Services, a subsidiary of Cingular Wireless.

4 casestudy Figure 2 (right): Off-the-shelf technology from the German RUC system all the data and will also be responsible for customer relationship management. The heart of the toll system is the application software developed by Siemens. It can identify toll segments passed through by a vehicle with high resolution and outstanding accuracy. In order to obtain as detailed a picture of driver behavior as possible, the road network covered by the pilot project has been divided into around 8,000 segments, approximately 30 per cent more than for the German toll system. The stored information regarding the road network ( digital map ) is critical for the quality of the detection algorithm. The reality as detected with the GPS within its tolerances in other words, the real network of roads and its digitalized replica (the map) do not always agree. The software, however, is able to compensate for any mismatches. At the end of October 2004, one month before the date agreed on, the PSRC subjected the new system to an approval inspection. It was found that the positioning accuracy was more than 98%, considerably above the 95% rate jointly agreed on by PSRC and Siemens. And this was achieved without any new roadside infrastructure. The pilot project For the pilot project, around 500 volunteer participants have been chosen from 350 households and are a representative cross-section of the mobile population. A virtual account will be set up for each individual participant who will be able to use a web portal to see which roads he has driven on and the total toll fee he would have to pay. As an incentive for active participation, the remaining credit in the account will be paid out once the project has been completed. The participant can directly influence the amount of remaining credit by changing his driving behavior. Practical testing is to start at the beginning of In this phase, all movements of the 500 vehicles will be recorded and stored. Each participant will immediately begin to receive invoices, which will, however, only be for purposes of verification and orientation. The Puget Sound Regional Council can inspect and evaluate the data at any time. Evaluation will be carried out from different points of view. For example, not only will the individual trips be recorded, including the stretch of road used, but also so-called origin-destination relationships. This will enable a comprehensive analysis of driver behavior, on the basis of which a suitable fee structure can be defined. From the middle of 2005 onwards, an important component will be added to the pilot project: a fee model that will be derived primarily from the accumulated data and will be announced, in due course, to all the participants. In this respect, it is especially important that the model is designed so that it is easy to understand but nevertheless flexible, enabling peak periods and the current traffic situation to be taken into account. This phase of the project will therefore provide information on the level of acceptance for the toll system among road users and whether a toll can actually improve the flow of traffic by influencing the user s selection of routes. During this second phase as well, every participant s online user account and monthly invoice will give him a continuous overview of the routes he has traveled on and the costs incurred. A fixed starting sum will be credited to the account, depending on the driver s behavior during the first phase of the practical test. If a participant does not change his behavior, the starting credit will have been used up completely when the trial period ends. In order to expand the database for the fee model, all vehicle movements will be recorded and evaluated during the second phase as well. After conclusion of the pilot project scheduled for the beginning of 2006 the collected data will be subjected to a thorough analysis and the results will be documented and processed appropriately. This will provide the PSRC with a solid basis for arriving at decisions regarding whether and how to subsequently proceed with the matter. Outlook In a relatively short time, Siemens, working on behalf of the PSRC, succeeded in creating a system that can shorten travel times for drivers and ensure full transparency of costs. Moreover, the authority can use the collected data for planning purposes and future telematics applications once personally identifiable information is removed. The Siemens toll system creates a basis for enabling traffic to be distributed better in the road network by means of an intelligent pricing system and thus for reducing congestion in terms of time and space. Improvements in the traffic flow would mean substantial savings in the maintenance of the infrastructure and could allow investments to be made in expansion of the road network. A fee charged for use would take some of the pressure off public budgets and might be seen by road users as a fairer means of paying for roads in that each person only pays for the use and maintenance of roads that he has actually driven on. A satellite-supported toll system could thus be a highly promising alternative to building or widening roads in regions that are suffering from excessive levels of traffic.

5 Tolled trip from Washington King via the I-90 Express Lane to Crown Hill Trip tracked by GPS from Washington King via the I-90 Express Lane to Crown Hill

6 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Siemens AG 2005 All Rights Reserved Order No. E10003-A800-A4-V Printed in Germany Dispo No K-No C6012 C-TSRTX520M09 SD Subject to change without prior notice