RCI specifications towards a next generation of road charging in Europe
When will GNSS-based tolling systems become available through an open and competitive market? How can industry accelerate advancements needed for performance improvements, cost reductions and increased functionality?
And what are the factors that determine the answer to these questions; what are the developments that define the European opportunities and what are the dynamics between industry, operators and Member States?
The RCI project gives through the development of specifications and the demonstration in existing tolling systems that are operated under real market conditions a first set of plausible answers to these questions.
European specifications for lower costs and higher functionality
An open and competitive market for tolling solutions requires stable European specifications that allow various stakeholders to invest: Supplier industry to manufacture and invest in products, service providers to invest in new operations and policy & law makers to engage in new schemes throughout Europe – or beyond - . It requires that relatively expensive in-vehicle units that would be deployed in Member State X work together (‘are interoperable’) with the tolling infrastructure in Member State Y. And it goes even further than that. It requires that the infrastructure and policy that a new tolling operator in Member State X will deploy e.g. in 2015 is interoperable with all in-vehicle units that have been put in the market for Member State Y in e.g. 2012 already.
Increased openness and competition through standardisation horizontalises the tolling market. It enables the policy makers to better predict and control the costs of implementation, operation, maintenance and future updates of road user charging schemes; it also creates conditions for a mass market for suppliers, enabling them to further invest in cost optimisations and a lower price per unit. And it allows the toll service providers to secure and possibly extend the business case of toll service provisioning.
How different flavours for road charging can be satisfied
Appropriate standards will also be important to build in the functionality in in-vehicle equipment that accommodates for the functional needs that Member States and/or private operators wish to impose in the future. In other words, such European specifications can protect Member States and toll chargers, service operators and suppliers that wish to choose themselves instead of being dictated by legacy solutions.
A standard that can be put in the market not on the book shelf
The RCI architecture is the result of consensus among 26 European partners including the tolling operators, toll service providers, truck manufacturer and suppliers.
The RCI architecture builds upon the roles and responsibilities as defined by the European operator community (ASECAP) and Member states (Stockholm Group) in the CESARE III project. It extends this role model with technical functional blocks and interfaces that have been derived from CEN/ISO work (such as 17575 and 15509). As such, RCI will not replace standardisation work, but is helps advancing standardisation by early validation with respect to real market requirements in Europe. Standardisation is not an objective in itself and instead should be in full support of the market needs of stakeholders. RCI as such has a unique role in Europe building a bridge between theory and real life market needs.
Elements in the RCI specifications
- Definition for how the thin/intelligent client discussion can and should be resolved;
- The tools for toll chargers and Member States to define now and in the future the functionality they need for their local/national toll system while at the same time defining a stable set of specifications that allows industry to manufacture OBE that can operate in tolled infrastructure now but that can without expensive replacement still operate in the tolled infrastructure of the future;
- Minimise the risk that existing intellectual property rights will impede market deployment by leaving maximum flexibility to the industry instead of imposing specific or even proprietary implementations;
- Specifying those interfaces that need to be standardised in support of procurement for an open competitive solution.
Documents for download:
Operational Procedures Architecture V1.01.pdf
Minimum Architecture V1.01.pdf
Security Architecture V1.01.pdf