Interoperability

Interoperability among several countries – using a single on-board unit to pay tolls

As a toll operator located in the heart of Europe, it is ASFINAG’s declared goal to offer its customers optimal service also with a view to interoperability with other tolling systems. In this spirit ASFINAG is actively involved in a number of European research projects which aim to lay the technical and contractual foundations for the interoperability of tolling systems and/or the introduction of the EETS (European Electronic Toll Service).

With the exception of Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Slovakia, all European countries that already have introduced electronic tolling systems that are based on the same underlying technology as the Austrian system (5.8 GHz DSRC microwave in line with the CEN Standard).

Technically, it would therefore be possible to use just one on-board unit to pay the tolls in all of these countries, provided that data transfer is synchronised at the on-board unit’s microwave interface and appropriate commercial and technical arrangements are in place.

The reason for introducing the EETS, which is called for in the Directive on the Interoperability of Electronic Road Toll Systems 2004/52/EC, is to enable customers to pay the tolls due in ALL EU Member States using just one on-board unit with one single contract. This means that such a single on-board unit would not only need to be compatible with the above-mentioned CEN DSRC interface but also for example with the DSRC system used in Italy and the satellite-based tolling systems used in Germany.

The underlying concept of the European Electronic Toll Service was prepared under the CESARE III project. Starting in 2007, the follow-up project, CESARE IV, focused on the correct design of the EETS. The findings achieved under CESARE IV (concluded at the end of 2009) were integrated in the EETS Decision, which went into force as of 8th of October 2009.

In Austria, ASFINAG has already made the necessary preparations to ensure interoperability of on-board units. As early as mid-2008, an upgrade to enable compatibility with EN 15509 (application profile for DSRC interoperability) was made to the road-side toll equipment in Austria. When the Austrian toll system was first launched on 1 January 2004, ASFINAG in cooperation with the Swiss Directorate General of Customs (Eidgenössische Oberzolldirektion) – the operator of the Swiss toll system – had already succeeded in providing interoperability between its system and the Swiss on-board units TRIPON and (since 1 November 2010) EMOTACH. Austria and Switzerland were therefore the first two nations worldwide to actually provide interoperability between their national tolling systems. Together with other toll operators such as Toll Collect in Germany or the Scandinavian toll syndicate EasyGo (involving toll operators from Denmark, Norway and Sweden), ASFINAG is currently investigating opportunities for interoperability in order to gather and share experience ahead of the introduction of the EETS.

As of September 1, 2011, the implementation of TOLL2GO is another step leading to an inter-system and inter-country toll service. Henceforth, the German toll operator Toll Collect GmbH and ASFINAG have implemented a toll system based on interoperability between a microwave-based toll system and a satellite-aided toll system. Thus, after registration for this service, you can pay the toll in Germany as well as in Austria through Toll Collect's On-Board Unit (or briefly TC OBU).
Currently, ASFINAG and the Scandinavian toll syndicate EasyGO (consisting of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish toll operators) cooperate on the implementation of an interoperable toll service pursuant to the EETS-model in order to gather and share experience already before the introduction of EETS.