No commitment
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V our article headed "Pie 1 in the Sky?" (CM 3-9 September) gave the impression that the European Commission's White Paper on road pricing, written by my fellow "Brussels bureaucrats will be requiring satellite tracking equipment for road pricing in the future.
I have examined the White Paper and cannot find any commitment to using satellite tracking for road pricing. The paper does state that "it is now technologically possible and economically feasible to implement electronic road charges that can reflect with reasonable accuracy the marginal costs of road use" and states that the main technologies are satellite and microwave.
However, all the report does is to stress that member states should develop electronic fee collection systems in a harmonised manner.
The paper does not say, as your article implies, that satellite tracking is the only solution. Indeed the White Paper makes clear the Commission has a role to play in funding road pricingrelated research, which would imply that nothing is fixed as regards the technology to be used.
Only three paragraphs of the 46-page White Paper deal with electronic charging methods for road tolls. I think readers may find other, more substantive parts of the Paper far more interesting and relevant than those reflecting on the development of telematics systems. Robert Missen, Directorate General for Transport, European Commission, Brussel&