Cases around the world suggest that toll charging in an urban environmentmight justify higher operational costs than toll collection applied to road financing. The urban charging aims at accommodating social factors likeair pollution and travel time. Hence controlling the traffic congestion and traffic volume is deemed vital. This is somewhat contrasting to road financing, which aims at maximizing toll revenue collection at minimized cost. This maximized profit scheme minimizes the down payment period of the road infrastructure, which enforces road toll operators to find cost efficient models for their operations. Using road financing as benchmark, we aimat investigating how urban electronic toll collection differ or converge from road toll collection in terms of policies, operational models and total cost of ownership. The main findings in this article suggest that thereare technology and system developments that can accommodate both scenarios.
Abstract