Electronic tolling on board units as electronic custom seals.

Microwave electronic tolling systems (ETC) are based on implementation onboard units (TAG) which is placed in each vehicle. According to EU specification for ETC interoperability all ETCs have to be on 5.8 GHz. TAG usually carries basic information concerning toll operator, way of payment, itsserial number, country cod etc. But all modern TAGs have more memory space than it is necessary for tolling needs. The project which is under construction in Serbia will introduce new application of TAGs for electronic custom seal. As Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Turkey are not the members of EU at their borders there are custom procedure for each commercial vehicle, which is time consuming and, some time, cumbersome. Croatia, Serbia and Turkey already have microwave ETC on their motorways. Serbia and Croatia are neighbouring countries. Each commercial vehicle has to stop at the border entry of Serbia, border exit of Serbia, border entry of Croatia and border exit of Croatia to clear customs. Each border stop caused delay which is measured by hours. And at each border stop the same procedure is performed. This situation produces long queues, delays and lotof inconvenience for commercial vehicle drivers. It also extends the travel time and increases transportation costs. Serbia is performing the project which will use TAGs as electronic custom seal as well as means of motorway toll payment. At the entrance border to Serbia each lane for commercial vehicle custom clearance will be equipped with ETC beacon, automatic vehicle license plate recognition (ALPR) system and weighing in motion equipment. During the entry custom clearing procedure the vehicle license plate number, axle weight, drivers data, origin and destination points, type of goods transported, custom tariffs and time and date of entry is downloadedto TAG. In the same time all these and others custom data concerning the vehicle are stored in custom data base. All custom offices at borders crossing and in the country are connected in intranet. Once the vehicle proceeded on this way at an entry crossing comes to the exit border check point the ALPR system read the vehicle license plate content and based on the license plate recall all custom data from data base. These data are comparedwith data on the TAG and if all data from ALPR, TAG and data base are identical only fast visual checking of vehicle and drivers passports are performed. This procedure takes couple minutes instead of hours. To prevent any frauds during the travelling through the country TAG number, license plate number and itinerary of such vehicles are distributed along motorways, so each pay toll line equipped by ETC beacon and ALPR is in the same time check point for the commercial vehicle movement. In case of leaving the motorway at the pay toll station which is not at the vehicle itinerary alarmis send to nearby police and custom office. This procedure is specially applied to commercial vehicle carrying hazardous goods. The paper describesthe system philosophy, architecture, its integration in motorway ITS, problems in implementation, expected benefits and efforts to its extension tobe common solution for Croatia and Serbia. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.