EETS - Eurointeroperability starting 2013

Ugly word perhaps but Eurointeroperability captures the essence of EETS much better than the official title: the European Electronic Toll Service.  That's the term for a scheme recently adopted by the European Commission to enable tolls to be paid almost everywhere in the European Community with one contract, one account and one on-board unit (transponder or GPS).

They envisage competing EETS electronic toll service providers, but a one contract and one on-board unit (DSRC or GPS). (CORRECTION)

The Commission has said the EETS system should be operating within three years for vehicles over 3.5 tons (7715pds) registered gross vehicle weight and in eight years for light vehicles.

There will be major benefits for truckers who frequently cross multiple national borders in Europe, akin to interstate movement in the US.  They frequently have multiple CEN278 transponders from different countries tollers on their windshields.

The European Union has had the  CEN278 electronic toll standard since 1997 and most toll systems in Europe conform to its specifications. It operates at 5.8GHz and is passive backscatter.

But with the minor exception of some arrangements between tollers operating on either side of the French-Spanish border there is no actual interoperability between one country and another.

Toll contracts with customers vary from one country to the next and there are at present few business arrangements between tollers across national boundaries.

Under the proposed interoperability motorists will be able to contract with the single EETS provider using either a TollCollect style GPS unit or a CEN278 RFID transponder and drive tollroads anywhere in the European Community. The EETS provider will in turn pay the various tollers.

The European Commission envisages eventually moving to a free flow cashless system - a long way from the gated toll systems still common across Europe.

Moves toward EETS began in 2003.

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/publications/doc/2009_eets.pdf

CREDIT: Mayer Horn put us onto this.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-07