London ITS World Congress: RCI is an important demonstrator for the EC
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At the EC Special Session on Interoperability of electronic fee collection during the London ITS World Congress (SS70), the European Commission presented how its directive 2004/52 mandates the availability of onboard units that can operate in all European electronic tolling environments. This interoperable onboard unit (OBE) must be made available to the European end-user by 2009 for heavy good vehicles and by 2011 for all vehicles. The session presented the technical challenges at both the physical and application levels, considering the contractual interoperability issues and reporting on the progress made with the Road Charging Interoperability (RCI) project. Indeed the EC considers that RCI is the project that will demonstrate such an OBE in the major existing European tolling and taxing environments.
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Presentations
- Mr. Philippe Hamet, GALILEO & Intelligent Transport Unit, EC - DG TREN (
) - Mr. Claude Bidaud, International and European Affairs, ASF, France ()
- Mr. Bernhard Oehry, Head of Traffic Telematics, Rapp Trans Ltd., Switzerland ()
- Mr. Ian Catling, Managing Director, Ian Catling Consultancy, UK ()
- Mr. Oene Kerstjens, Project and Development Manager, ERTICO-ITS Europe ()
Oene Kerstjens, RCI project coordinator, presented how the project created large consensus within the European industry on the specification of requirements for its prototype. On the basis of that consensus, the project launched a call for proposals to implement the prototype to European industry in early 2006. The experience gained by the project with that call for proposals, followed by the evaluation by independent experts and the successful selection of suppliers during the summer of 2006, constitutes a major milestone for the EC in their process towards a European open market for interoperable solutions.
Mr Kerstjens also presented the RCI project at the Technical Session on Road Pricing (TS 10):
Technical road charging interoperability for cheaper solutions at lower risk ()