This article gives facts and figures to show that the use of electronic toll collection (ETC) systems and electronic toll transactions can actually reduce road construction and operating costs and increase revenues. Toll booth plazas, with their accompanying administrative structures and additional traffic lanes, require massive amounts of land, and have very considerable construction costs for roadways and buildings. In contrast, most ETC equipment is mounted on an overhead gantry at each toll point. In the USA, use of ETC reduces the total cost of a toll road project by about 10%.In some ETC systems, like that offered by Hughes TMS, all the equipment is above ground and costs even less, by eliminating the tunnelling needed to bury cables and sensors. Such systems allow existing roadways to be inexpensively retrofitted for electronic tolling. Once installed, open-road ETC systems can later be developed to accommodate future Intelligent Transport System (ITS) applications, such as commercial vehicle operations and advanced transport management systems, allowing them to be incorporated at lower construction costs. They provide substantial opportunities for improving commuting, managing traffic congestion, meeting delivery deadlines, and solving many other transport problems.
Samenvatting