The German Satellite Truck Tolling System

The German Truck Tolling System is one of the worlds' most ambitious toll system projects. Trucks receive a device which autonomously determines the applicable tariff from its current location (derived from GPS satellites) and information inside the vehicle. The connection to the back-end is via a GSM cellular link. EFKON is providing the following products and services to Toll-Collect and other parties within the German Truck Tolling scheme (rounded numbers): EFKON has pioneered the development of the GPS/GSM slot On Board Unit more than 500.000 Satellite On Board Units are based on the substantial Know How of EFKON.

More than 1 Mio. DSRC Heads: EFKON provides the DSRC communication component for both - the dashboard-mounted and the slot-mounted OBU. The DSRC component contains dual interfaces:(a) Active Infrared interface for stationary and mobile enforcement, car-to-car communication and ad-hoc-networking(b) CEN 278 Microwave DSRC interface for backward compatibility (technical interoperability has been established but business rules are yet to be defined by the different countries)

Active DSRC Infrared Communications for Multilane Free Flow Enforcement for 1000 Lanes. These are placed in strategic 300 locations like borders, in-roads to cities etc. and are designed for vehicle speed up to 250 km/h.

Solar Powered GPS-Backup Beacons for approximately 500 Multilane Free Flow LanesFor 200 locations which are critical to be tolled by GPS (e.g. exits after tunnels, parallel roads along the entire highway section, construction sites). Because digging for electricity is rather costly, EFKON provides solar powered Infrared beacons. There is GPRS communication with the central system.

300 Floating Car/Mobile Enforcement Vehicles
EFKON has equipped the entire fleet of enforcement vehicles with communication equipment for active car-to-car communication, a mobile office, payment terminals, copiers and scanners to create court proof evidence of toll violations. Furthermore there are also has been supplied by EFKON one Hand-Held Enforcement Device for all vehicles.

A résumé about the toll system in Germany in the past five years - outlined by the operator Toll Collect:
Over the past five years, the German toll system has logged and invoiced around 140 billion kilometres – more than any other toll system anywhere in the world. The satellite-supported toll system has been widely accepted by German and foreign users alike. This is especially true for the automatic log-on system using On-Board Units. In January 2005, automatic log-on accounted for 72 per cent of all toll bookings. Today, this figure has risen to more than 90 per cent. There are now around 900,000 heavy goods vehicles owned by 127,000 companies in 41 countries registered with Toll Collect. Some 642,000 vehicles are equipped with On-Board Units for automatic toll collection. The proportion of foreign-owned vehicles with On-Board Units has increased to 42 per cent.

The toll system operates with a high degree of precision. This is demonstrated by the high availability in the automatic system. Since 2006, this has constantly averaged 99.75 per cent –exceeding the standard of 99 per cent required in the operator contract. The cost of operating the toll system has continuously decreased over the past years and currently accounts for around 12 per cent of toll income.

Source: Toll Collect (partly)