Countries or urban areas without traditional road tolling but intending to introduce EFC (electronic fee collection) systems must in the future choose from a number of options concerning the requirements of the EFC system being applied. One of the decisions to be taken regards the tolled road infrastructure in which of the following two alternative concepts may be considered: Network tolling, where only the motorway network and particular highway sections or objects such as bridges, tunnels, etc. are tolled; and area tolling, where all roads within a defined area are tolled. In the present paper some of the main characteristics of area tolling are presented, and the issues raised for interoperability between network tolling systems and area tolling systems are discussed.
Abstract