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• In a move designed to ease the plight of
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hard-pressed hauliers, the European Commission has moved to introduce a single, fully interoperable system of road tolling throughout the EU.
Exasperated by more than 10 years of failure to reach a common position on a standard for microwave-based tolling systems, the EC is attempting to impose the newer satellitebased technology on all member states. All systems Implemented after 1 January 2008 will, according to the proposal, have to be based on DHSS/GSM (Global Navigation Satellite System/Global System for Mobile communications) technology.
The proposal should put an end to the prospect of numerous in-cab electronic readers needed to deal with the various national tolling systems as hauliers cross international boundaries.
But the proposed Directive is not expected to have an easy ride. A number of European countries including France, Spain, Norway, Italy and, from around 2007, Austria, have microwave systems which are not interoperable with each other.
The French have only recently reached a position where a single microwave tolling system operates throughout the country while the Italians have invested millions of Euros In their own Teiepass system, None are likely to take kindly to a European Directive that requires them to move to an entirely new technology.
"By 2010," says the EC paper, the text of which was agreed on 23 April, "Interoperability between national electronic toll systems will have been achieved by the deployment of a European service offered to all types of customer."