Electronic Toll Collection

Electronic Toll Collection

Electronic toll collection (ETC), an adaptation of military "identification friend or foe" technology, aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads by collecting tolls electronically. ETC determines whether the cars passing are enrolled in the program, alerts enforcers for those that are not, and electronically debits the accounts of registered car owners without requiring them to stop.

In 1959, Nobel Economics Prize winner William Vickrey was the first to propose a system of electronic tolling for the Washington Metropolitan Area. He proposed that each car would be equipped with a transponder. “The transponder’s personalised signal would be picked up when the car passed through an intersection, and then relayed to a central computer which would calculate the charge according to the intersection and the time of day and add it to the car’s bill” Electronic toll collection has facilitated the concession to the private sector of the construction and operation of urban freeways, as well as made feasible the improvement and the practical implementation of road congestion pricing schemes in a limited number of urban areas to restrict auto travel in the most congested areas.

In the 1960s and 1970s, free flow tolling was tested with fixed transponders at the undersides of the vehicles and readers, which were located under the surface of the highway.

Norway has been the world's pioneer in the widespread implementation of this technology. ETC was first introduced in Bergen, in 1986, operating together with traditional tollbooths. In 1991, Trondheim introduced the world's first use of completely unaided full-speed electronic tolling. Norway now has 25 toll roads operating with electronic fee collection (EFC), as the Norwegian technology is called (see AutoPASS). In 1995, Portugal became the first country to apply a single, universal system to all tolls in the country, the Via Verde, which can also be used in parking lots and gas stations. The United States is another country with widespread use of ETC in several states, though many U.S. toll roads maintain the option of manual collection.

Open road tolling (ORT) is a type of electronic toll collection without the use of toll booths. The major advantage to ORT is that users are able to drive through the toll plaza at highway speeds without having to slow down to pay the toll.