RCI

Contributing to free-flow road charging

The Road Charging Interoperability (RCI) project will contribute to the development of a standard for the electronic collection of road tolls. Based on existing and planned European road charging systems, the RCI project will produce an open integrated framework that will enable road charging interoperability. Prototype onboard equipment will be developed that will demonstrate how such a system would work. The framework and equipment will be implemented and tested in six countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

The results and experiences obtained in the RCI project will in turn feed into the ongoing work to establish the Electronic European Tolling Service (EETS). Aimed at ensuring electronic toll service interoperability at the technical, contractual and procedural level, the EETS will produce a set of technical standards and requirements in each of these three fields. The RCI project will contribute to the definition of the technical standard through its work on an interface and architecture for interoperable road charging. As such, the RCI project can be seen as a demonstration project that will validate a cornerstone element of the future electronic tolling standard.

The success of such a standard, however, is dependent on industry’s and operators’ acceptance and willingness to implement it. Therefore, the RCI Forum uniting the key stakeholders was established and it will be consulted at regular intervals in order to ensure the widest possible consensus on the proposed solutions.

Objectives

Specify and implement a road charging prototype that can be used in all existing RCI road-charging systems:
- Austria (ASFINAG)
- Italy (TELEPASS)
- France (TIS)
- Spain (VIA-T)
- Germany (TOLL COLLECT)
- Switzerland (LSVA)

The RCI specifications will:

• Define interface specifications, on the basis of which different suppliers can manufacture equipment that can operate in a multitude of contexts.
• Contribute to the convergence of future tolling systems and the evolution of existing systems, enabling more standard components to be reused across different systems.
• Be open, public and available on a non-discriminatory basis to any stakeholder, including all system suppliers.

Duration and Funding

June 2005 - June 2008. Funding through the EC Directorate General for Transport and Energy

Consortium

Coordinator: ERTICO

Partners: AISCAT, ASECAP, ASETA, ASFA, ASFINAG, ASPI, Cofiroute, ICC, ISIS, LogicaCMG, Rapp, Servi-Abertis, Sinelec, Swiss Customs Authority, T-Systems International, TÜV, Volvo

New Partners (approved July 2006): AGES International GmbH & Co. KG, ELEM S.p.A., FELA Management AG, Kapsch TrafficCom AG, Q-Free ASA, Sociedad Ibérica de Construcciones Eléctricas S.A., Technolution B.V., Thales Transportation Systems