A flexible way to support mixed charging models in free flow tolling

Abstract

Many Road User Charges(RUC) charging models have already been developed in urban areas either at national or at regional/city level and most of them have very widely applied foreground in the industry, for example single-pass based, distance-based, time based and vehicle characteristics based. But most of existing RUC system is based on the onefold charging model according to self-defined goals and makes use of specific technologies. Therefore, it is necessary to find a way to support mixed charging models. Under present circumstances, most of the existing RUC charging models are based onDSRC and following gantry based technology, so the practicable solution is to extend functionality of existing solution to support mixed charging models in Free Flow Tolling. This paper introduces the key issues which used to support mixed charging models, and also presents the detail implementation principle of trip generation and the process of charging based on passages with mixed charging models. In this paper, the charging models including single-pass charging, distance-based charging and time-based charging. The first objective of this paper is to show the existing DSRC system can be more flexible by supporting Distance-Based Charging and Time-based Charging or Vehicle characteristics based Charging; another objective is to show the mixed charging system can be enhanced to support more business features not just charging fees, such as travel time calculation and speeding violation capturing or other traffic information. The real case introduced in this paper shows this concept is a viable and attractive solution for mixed charging models in Free Flow Tolling. © 2011 by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.