Project News: Workshop on interoperable road charging in Europe

Date: 13 May 2008

The Road Charging Interoperability (RCI) project launched a 5000-km long - first of its kind -  tour with two trucks on 1st of April 2008, demonstrating true interoperable road charging while seamlessly crossing six different European countries.

The project will hold a validation workshop on 30 May 2008 at the ERTICO Office in Brussels. The organisers of the workshop have foreseen a programme that goes beyond the usual seminar-type event with real-life cases and discussions to share experience on operational interoperable prototypes and 6 existing major tolling systems in Europe.

Participants will find out about the functional prototypes that show how interoperability is technically achievable on the basis of one open architecture that can help (1) the supplier industry to realise economies of scale, (2) establish an open and competitive market for the provisioning of interoperability, and (3) provide the user with “one box, one contract and a minimum number of invoices solutions” for seamless use anywhere in Europe.

They will also see how today’s agreements between existing Toll Operators (acting as Toll Chargers) and the RCI project Toll Service Providers (facilitated by RCI partners Cofiroute and ASFA) made it possible(for the time of the demonstrations) to send real invoices to the end users of interoperable prototypes (owners of the 2 RCI trucks). In addition, it will be possible to see how the technical implementation of an open architecture for interoperability can support the responsibilities of transport actors as defined by Member States and operators (CESARE III).

Participants at the workshop will be able to:

   Understand lessons learned on how a technical solution for interoperable road charging can meet the requirements of toll operators, toll service providers and manufacturers

   Discuss the RCI preliminary validation results and hear about best practice with respect to business and policy needs

   Enlarge the base of RCI experiences and discuss how to take lessons learned forward and help advance interoperability in Europe

The workshop is free of charge and open to registration at www.ertico.com/RCIValidationWorkshop

The workshop agenda is available at

http://www.ertico.com/download/RCI_WorkshopIIIAgenda_V1%200.pdf

For more information, please contact Mr Oene Kerstjens, Project Manager at ERTICO, at o.kerstjens@mail.ertico.com.