In Brazil, the liberalisation of the highway sector and the offering of incentives for private sector involvement have accelerated the introduction of advanced traffic control and electronic toll collection (ETC) technologies on the highways. One such system has been developed on the Rio-Niteroi Bridge Toll System, which was opened on 17 August 1996. The average daily traffic flow across the bridge is 60,000 vehicles, peaking to 100,000 vehicles during holidays. The ETC system has been performing well from both operator and user viewpoints, without queues occurring, even during peak periods. It is a fully automated 14-lane, 12-booth system, integrated via Ethernet into three operating levels, and based on an Oracle database system. Four lanes have Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) facilities, with two of them handling automatic toll collection only, while the other two can perform either automatic or manual tolling. The three operating levels are: (1) Tolling, to manage and control the equipment of each lane; (2) Operational Supervision, fully monitoring and controlling the toll plaza operational status, so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken quickly when needed; and (3) Finance and Administration, for the toll management system. There is also a violation enforcement system.
Abstract