The Q-Free system was originally designed for non-stop tolling purposes, including automatic electronic toll collection (ETC). Installed in 1988, its first commercial product, the tolling system on the eastern motorway at Trondheim, Norway was very successful, because all vehicles using its transponders could pass through unhindered. All Q-Free products comply with applicable CEN, ETSI and ISO standards. Since 1988, Q-Free has been developed, refined and applied to several applications. Its systems are used in Portugal, Austria, Norway, and South Korea. Over 1M vehicles use its transponders to pay tolls, and over 750,000 payments are made per day. The ETC's key elements are its transponder, roadside communication system, enforcement system, toll plaza computer system and central management system. In Portugal, the tolling system is a closed tolling system, where the toll to be paid depends on the distance to be travelled along the road; despite this extra complication, Q-Free calculates the payment due in only a fraction of a second. Austria's Eco-point system checks the pollution level of heavy vehicles passing through it, deducts the appropriate number of Ecopoints at each transit, and registers the vehicle's identity, owner, country and type. Q-Free can also give higher priority to delayed full buses than empty buses.
Abstract