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Investigating the next generation mobile wireless technology to deliver a pervasive mobile pervasive computing environment

for road user charging and other ITS services

Dr A. Tully School of Computing Science

University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

Tel +44 191-222-8223 Fax +44-191-222-8232

alan.tully@ncl.ac.uk

Professor P.T. Blythe Transport Operations Research Group

University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

Tel +44 191-222-7935 Fax +44-191-222-8352 p.t.blythe@ncl.ac.uk

ABSTRACT Wireless devices are pervasive in everyday life from mobile phones to millimetre precision locating systems (GPS). Wireless technology is advancing at speed and the opportunities for use in the intelligent transport field are immeasurable and include areas such as road user charging, congestion control and fleet management.

The opportunity to harness the potential of new, intelligent infrastructure within the road transport sector will be a major research issue of the next decade. The ability to monitor, sense, manage and communicate with vehicles, the roadside control systems and the driver offers new and currently unexplored new tools to manage the road network more efficiently. One key application of a more pervasive approach to control would be the possibility of using such a system to implement an incremental road-user charging system across the whole of the UK road network in a much more intelligent way than is currently envisaged by the Secretary for State for transport and his National Road User Charging Steering Committee which suggests that within 10 years the UK could use a GPS-based solution pay as you drive solution to replace the fixed price vehicle excise duty (car tax) by a variable charge relating to the usage made of the vehicle.

This paper examines and comments on the current issues of road-user charging in the UK from two perspectives; technical and political. The paper concludes that the lack of appropriate technology will not be the constraint in implementing road-user charging in the near future in the UK. However, the existing local authority schemes in London and Durham, the on-going National Trials in Leeds, the policy of introducing distance-based charging for HGV’s and the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Transport to examine the possibility of a National Road Use Charging scheme utilising a probable black-box approach in all UK registered vehicles suggests certain policy and technology divergences which may be difficult to sell to the public.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND The milestone government report “Traffic in Towns”, better known as the Buchanan Report (HMSO, 1963), predicted that the 12 cars owned per 100 people in 1962 would rise to 38 cars per 100 people in 1995. They were right; and this heroic prediction underscores all the problems to which the relentless growth of car ownership has given rise over those three decades. Where the authors of the Buchanan Report were wrong in their prediction, however, was in assuming little further growth beyond that. They predicted that a saturation level in ownership would be at only 40-45 cars per 100 people by about 2010. The truth is that saturation ownership levels already being reached in several countries (USA, Italy and Luxemburg, for example) are at 60-65 cars per 100 people. This and other evidence points to the UK being still only two-thirds of the way to saturation level in car-ownership. If real disposable incomes go on rising,

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the overall size of the car population in the UK is likely to rise, from 23M this year to an eventual plateau of 33M to 36M some time before 2040.

If we choose not to plan for it or fail in our best endeavours to combat it, a prospective 50% increase in traffic over the next 30 or so years will lead to a considerable worsening of congestion. The CBI has estimated the overall cost of traffic congestion, to UK plc, as being in excess of £21,000M per year. This is more than all the other external costs of road traffic that fall on society put together (accidents, noise, pollution, CO2 output, etc…). The potential economic returns and social benefits of reducing congestion, therefore, are huge.

In the 1998 Transport White Paper a shift in emphasis in transport policy was made, moving away from the short-term predict and provide policy of building roads to meet demand to the emphasis on Integrated Transport and utilising policy and ITS-tools to persuade UK drivers to “use their cars a little less and use alternative transport a little more”. Key to this was the promise of legislation to enable local authorities to introduce congestion charging, as a means to hopefully manage traffic congestion and also to allow local authorities to retain the income derived from congestion charging for re-investment in the local transport infrastructure and improvements in public transport. This has resulted in a number of cities adopting road user charging using a variety of technological solutions.

In parallel with this the DfT launched the DIRECTS research programme which aims at trailing interoperable solutions for road user charging in Leeds with a view to delivering a National Specification for Congestion Charging.

The two activities above make a sensibly synergetic package – however for road-use charging in the UK, this is not the full story. Following the successful fuel tax protests of 2000 which posed a problem for the government in dealing with the increasing inflows of foreign HGV hauliers, filling up at Irish and continental Channel ports with their (now cheaper) diesel and using the British road network “for free.” Which in turn led the Treasury in November 2001 to publish a consultation paper on distance-based charging for all HGVs, British and foreign alike, to ensure fair competition in the haulage industry and shift to an efficient direct charging regime “at the point of use.” The precedent for this already exists: Switzerland has had a nationwide charging scheme for HGVs since 2000 and Germany since 2003. Implementation is relatively straightforward, as most HGVs are equipped with GPS location-finding equipment and many already have local cellular radio communications. The Chancellor confirmed plans for distance-based HGV charging in his April 2002 budget and has the backing of the Freight Transport Association (FTA) and of the CBI. Current timetables suggest the HGV charging will be introduced in the UK in 2006. In the background, however, there is the feeling that the real agenda is to examine the feasibility of how quickly such a scheme can be rolled out to include cars and other vehicles using our congested motorways. The Commission for Integrated Transport (CfT) see this as the logical corollary to developing congestion charging in the urban hot spots and this future approach was largely confirmed in a major policy speech by the Secretary of State for Transport on 10th July 2003, who announced a major research programme to examine all aspects of such an approach.

This paper will consider how these competing initiatives for road-user charging in the UK are evolving, how technical and interoperable convergence may be possible in the future and what impact the charging may have on future transport policy in the UK. This is not a new issue, the technology for electronic road pricing has been debated ever since the trials of ERP were hosted in Hong Kong as far back as 1985. Some of the most visionary and ground-breaking research was led by the late Professor Peter Hills team in Transport Operations Research Group at Newcastle University (Hills and Blythe, 1989 and 1990).

To bring about the pay as you go policies outlined above, technically, we need to introduce an efficient charging mechanism that can levy tolls and road-use charges automatically, i.e. without the need for the drivers to stop and pay or to perform any action (other than those of normal driving). Thus, charging systems should, where practicable, enable the collection of these charges at normal highway speeds and without the need for segregating vehicles into separate lanes, as with conventional toll-collection facilities. Indeed, it would be infeasible and unworkable, in many locations, to require traffic to be segregated into lanes, drivers to stop their vehicles and pay either manually to an operator or by inserting coins, bank-notes or a card into a collecting machine. Building of these toll plazas such as those at the Dartford, Tyne and Mersey river crossings (and throughout Southern and Central Europe, where purpose-built toll roads are widespread) is costly and crucially requires a substantial land-area for each site. It is generally not practical

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to retro-fit a toll plaza to an existing road - in urban areas, this may be unacceptable on other grounds also e.g. the creation of additional congestion, with consequent dis-benefits, such as noise and air pollution. Moreover, purpose-built toll roads generally have a limited number of entry and exit points, whilst access to un-tolled roads usually is not so restricted - thus creating an additional difficulty when introducing urban road charging.

The publication of the Government’s White Paper on Integrated Transport in July 1998 caused a shift in emphasis in the UK away from road building, based upon the predict and provide principle, towards demand management (i.e. traffic restraint) and a better integration of transport modes. Moreover, to encourage Local Authorities to consider congestion charging as an option to help manage the demand for car travel, the Transport Act 2000 requires Local Authorities to retain the net revenue raised from congestion charging and/or private non-residential (PNR) charging for a minimum of 10 years – this ring-fenced revenue has to be reinvested in local transport schemes and in the support of public transport. This provision in the 2000 Act that links the introduction of congestion charging (as a stick) to the reinvestment of net revenues in better public transport within the same jurisdiction (as a carrot) may well be the lynch-pin in cities being able to secure sufficient public acceptance for future congestion charging schemes.

The concept of direct road-user charging is not new. Indeed, road-user charging has been considered as a tool for managing congestion and raising revenue for many decades, although few trials and implementations have actually taken place. The economic theory on which the principle of road-use pricing is based was first put forward by Pigou (the father of welfare economics) in 1920, with Vickrey (1969) and Walters (1961) relating it specifically to road traffic. The first official acknowledgement of the technical possibilities of direct pricing at the point of use was the Smeed Report (1964). Since then, a great deal of research has been undertaken and a number of attempts to introduce urban road-user charging have been made, most notably the Hong Kong trials (1983-85 and 1998), the Singapore Area Licensing Scheme (1975-1998) – now replaced by an automatic electronic scheme - and the toll-rings around Bergen, Trondheim and Oslo in Norway (Blythe et al, 2001). Motorway schemes, using electronic devices to automate existing toll-collection facilities are quite widespread and include numerous examples in the USA and in the ASECAP countries (Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Portugal), as well as new multi-lane tolling schemes on Toronto’s Highway 407 and the Melbourne CityLink.

TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIONS FOR CONGESTION CHARGING Currently, several electronic technologies are being used or have been considered for charging. The more important of these are briefly reviewed below.

• Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) systems, for two-way communication between a roadside or gantry beacon and in-vehicle tags or transponders.

• Wide Area Communications-based systems, which use some form of locationing system coupled with appropriate communication systems to manage and enforce payment.

• Video-based License-Plate Recognition systems, using roadside cameras with automatic optical character recognition (OCR) software to match vehicles number plates with a pre-registered list.

(a) Microwave-based Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) Systems

These systems need road-side equipment, typically mounted on a gantry, with electronic tags in the vehicles which may be read-only, read–write or smartcard-based. Read-only tags contain a fixed identification code which, when interrogated by a roadside reading device at the charging point, conveys this identity to the roadside system. The code relates to the identity of the vehicle or the identity of the user’s account. Read-only tags operate reliably only if used for single-lane operation at low speed and over a short range. However, their inflexibility, dumbness and inability to work in a high-speed, multi-lane road situation limits their application to that of automating existing toll-plazas. Read–write tags are a logical development of the read-only tag. They can receive data from the roadside and store this data directly on the tag or on a separate value-card (which may be interfaced to the tag whilst in the vehicle).The most flexible in-vehicle units (IVUs) are transponders (smart tags) that support smartcards. They are intelligent, having the capability to handle and process many kinds of data and to be programmed to manage a number of different applications. Such a system requires a reliable, high-speed two-way data-communications link

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with the roadside and more complex on-board equipment, replacing some of the processing requirements traditionally handled by the roadside equipment.

Figure 1: Schematic for a DSRC transponder-based charging system

A modular approach is adopted to the transponder’s design, facilitating add-on peripheral equipment (e.g. smartcard readers, keyboards, displays and connections to other in-vehicle equipment). Such transponders were first developed in the EU funded project ADEPT (automatic debiting and electronic payment for transport) project in the early 1990’s (Blythe and Hills, 1994 and Blythe 1998), a European funded project led by TORG in the early 1990s which installed trial systems in the UK, Sweden, Portugal and Greece (Figure 2).

Figure 2: ADEPT single multi-lane gantry near Thessaloniki, Greece, 1995:

world’s first commercial multi-lane toll-collection at speed

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The modularity in the design of the automatic debiting transponder prototypes allows several different forms of payment (all of them cashless) with one device. Possession of a transponder offers users the possibility of holding a positive (or a limited negative) balance of credit-units, either directly in the transponder’s memory or alternatively on a separate smartcard interfaced to the transponder. The smartcard, being portable, can then be used for other payment purposes. These systems are perceived by many international road administrations as the future of road-user charging, where high-volume, multi-lane roads need to be tolled without restricting traffic flow. Europe standardisation of DSRC systems nears completion and many products based upon 5.8 GHz microwave communications technology will soon emerge, though to date few commercial installations exist. Worldwide, the Singapore system and Highway 407 in Canada utilise such an approach. The key limiting factor seems to be the processing speed of the smartcard – in Singapore, each charging point has two gantries – one to start communications with the vehicle and a second (further down the road) to complete the transaction and perform enforcement measures, if necessary. The demonstration of interoperable road-user end-to-end charging and telematics systems (DIRECTS) project, launched by the Department for Transport (DfT) using 800 or so volunteer drivers, who will have their vehicles equipped for the trial in Leeds, will finally prove an end-to-end solution for DSRC-based charging. The aim of DfT is to develop a UK national specification for Interoperable payment of road-user charges, consistent with the emerging European standards.

(b) Wide Area Communications-Based Systems

Wide-area systems are a more recent innovation in charging and tolling technology – also widely known by the term MPS (mobile positioning systems). They use two technologies adapted from other applications; namely, GPS (global positioning system), whose satellites enable suitably equipped vehicles to calculate their location accurately; and a two-way communications link (e.g. GSM) based upon cellular radio. These systems were tested in the German trials in 1995–96 in parallel with an EPSRC-funded trial in Newcastle during the same period and Hong Kong 1998–99 (Blythe 1999). They are designed (like DSRC systems) not to disrupt the flow of multi-lane traffic on motorways. Moreover, because in urban areas ‘virtual’ toll-points can be established (and changed, as necessary), these wide-area systems will reduce the amount and environmental intrusion of roadside infrastructure required, in comparison to DSRC systems.

Figure 3: Schematic for a Mobile Positioning-Based Road Charging System

GPS satellite-based system. The in-vehicle unit (IVU) contains a GPS receiver and the transponder must have a record of the locations of all charging points. At a pricing cordon, the system will deduct the appropriate charge from the credit-units stored in its account. It can use GSM to inform the central system, once a limit on the on-board account has been reached, enabling it to initiate the clearing process and

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allowing a range of credit-transfer options. It can also use GSM to reload the smartcard and update the IVU with information on the charging tariff and locations of the ‘virtual’ pricing sites as well as providing an enforcement function (Figure 3). Such a solution lends itself to distance-based charging as well.

Third generation cellular radio technology. Proposals have been made for tolling systems based on charging for entering a radio ‘cell’, with the first trials being held on the A555 Köln–Bonn autobahn in 1996. Until recently, this option could be discounted, as phones could not offer sufficient accuracy in pin-pointing where the phone is at any given time. However, this may change with the potential locationing function that will be inherent in third generation (3G) mobile phone networks. The 3G companies claim an accurate location service for business phone users – perhaps down to 10–15 metres resolution – which is ample for road-user charging purposes. As the phones already have secure access and a central payment facility (as well as European interoperability), the technology needs only to provide a credible security and enforcement scheme to be considered a serious contender.

(c) Video-based License-Plate Recognition

Video-based systems. Video-based systems rely on the accurate reading of vehicle licence plates as the primary means of identifying, charging and enforcing vehicles in a congestion charging scheme. The big advantage of this is that it obviates the need for any in-vehicle equipment. Moreover, it solves the occasional user problem, whereby those who use a particular charging scheme only rarely do not have the necessary in-vehicle charging equipment to pay the charges automatically. Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) is a variation on the automatic account identification system, which also relies on the vehicle’s number plate as its unique identifier. ANPR systems process the video images taken by a camera at the roadside or on a gantry, locate the number plate in the image and convert this into the appropriate alphabetic/numeric characters, without any human intervention (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Video Based Congestion Charging Scheme

The increasing use of video cameras for road traffic monitoring has given an incentive to improve camera technology, including optical processing, to provide a wider contrast range and give clear images, even when the licence-plates are in heavy shadow or surrounded by bright headlights in direct alignment with the camera. Unresolved problems with ANPR, however, still include:

• number plates of many and different shapes and sizes • difficulties in accurate reading under poor weather conditions – eg due to dirt/rain/snow

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• similarities between some letters/numbers (Os being read as Ds, for example) and • insufficient control of ambient light at camera positions

To improve the overall accuracy, some vendors provide for the capture of multiple images. If ANPR system determines the same plate information for all images, the confidence level of the data is improved and manual interpretation may not be required. Any discrepancies are either placed in a queue for visual inspection or treated as a lost revenue transaction. A Government Office for London Report (GOL, 2000) reviewed the road-user charging options for London (the ROCOL report) in 1998/1999. It studied the feasibility of road-use pricing and work-place parking charging, as well as the likely impacts on business, traffic levels and user reaction to the charging proposals. It recommended that London should implement a video-based road-user charging system, in the first instance, until the results of the DIRECTS project were available. In August 2002, the Mayor, Ken Livingstone gave the final go-ahead to proceed towards a full-scale implementation of congestion charging in central London, using ANPR. The highly publicised launch in London was on the 17th February 2003 – and it appears to work. There are clearly some technical problems but scheme management is sufficiently robust to cope. Indeed 6 months into the scheme, the reduction in traffic was around 15% and the difference in the environment and travel-times within the Cordon is remarkable. This has led to a rethink by many local authorities as to their options for charging.

HOW CONGESTION CHARGING TECHNOLOGY MAY DEVELOP These three competing approaches to future charging systems all have different attributes, advantages and disadvantages. For many years, short-range transponder/tag based systems have been preferred, due to their simplicity of operation, potential for supporting additional services for vehicle users and, most importantly, because they are easy for users to understand – you pass a point and you pay. Technological advances have opened up new opportunities for innovative charging schemes.

Wide area charging schemes, which rely on the in-vehicle equipment determining where the vehicle is and charging the vehicle accordingly (based on passing a pre-defined point – or on the distance travelled by the vehicle) are attractive and offer new possibilities for charging without the main disadvantage of short-range charging systems, namely the associated road-side infrastructure at every charging and enforcement point. Some infrastructure is still required for enforcement purposes (Figure 4), but this can be situated in locations where aesthetics are not a prime consideration. Effective operation and enforcement using GPS-based systems was demonstrated in the recent Hong Kong charging trials (1998–99). Moreover, the distance-based taxation of heavy goods vehicles which is being considered by the UK Treasury could probably only be efficiently implemented using some form of wide area charging (probably linked to vehicles’ digital tachographs – as in Switzerland).

Video-based charging is a very recent innovation, with London being the first large urban area to adopt such an approach. In Norway, video is used as the primary charging means in the cities of Kristiansand and Bergen: however, this is on a very small scale in comparison with London. For central London, the scheme has clearly required a very complex back-room clearing and management system, to register on a daily basis all those who wish to pay to use the charged area within the cordon and also to record and process the images of all vehicles recorded, entering the charged area – but who have not registered and paid. If the system in London is deemed a success over the next two or three years, several other UK cities seem poised to introduce a similar system although the scalability of a central London cordon into a much larger scheme using the same technology package is questionable.

Looking ahead, despite the general animosity between suppliers, the short-term future evolution of charging is likely to be a fusion of a DSRC and wide-area charging systems – which will be able to support several different charging configurations with one set of in-vehicle equipment. Most drivers seem to prefer a system that they can actually see working through some sort of display in the vehicle.

In the longer term there is a school of thought evolving that is suggesting that advances in communications and mobile networking technologies may actually cause a radical re-think of how vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communications may evolve. Attention of the research community is now focused on fourth generation (4G) systems. 4G systems will not in themselves be a new technology, rather they will integrate a number of existing technologies such as 3G, Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) and Wireless LAN (WLAN) into heterogeneous wireless networks to provide access to an ever-increasing range of services.

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Data will be transported through 4G networks using packets which conform to the Internet Protocol version 6 (Ipv6) standards. Mobile devices will be able to connect to a 4G network through the nearest WLAN hot-spot Access Point (AP). The ability for mobile devices to access generic services via WLANs will mean that users become totally independent of the mobile network operator. There is no longer any need for a stovepipe solution for charging. Local authorities and transport operators seem to favour this technology as a short to medium term solution for personal communications provision over LAN distances.

The Pervasive Computing community are addressing issues which are pertinent to the establishment of any ubiquitous vehicle network. Pervasive computing will embed data processing devices in everyday objects. As the density of such computing devices increases, so does their need for communications. Despite advances in 3G cellular networks, they are not scaleable indefinitely and will never provide sufficient bandwidth to support truly Pervasive Computing due to the high cost of infrastructure and the limited capabilities of embedded devices. Even the envisaged 4G networks have their limitations, WLANs are used as single-hop bridges between mobile users and Internet access points, so the extension of the edge of the Internet is limited by the transmission range of the technology. Instead, new ways of communication are needed which do not rely so heavily on built infrastructure.

A Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET) is a collection of mobile computing devices which cooperate to form a dynamic multi-hop network without using fixed infrastructure. In 4G networks, WLANs are used to provide a single hop access to the Internet when a mobile device is within range of an Access Point (AP). In MANETs, devices themselves provide routing services so that a device can access the Internet even where no direct wireless connection exists between the device and an AP. One consequence of adopting a MANET architecture is that computing nodes themselves become an integral part of the communications infrastructure, bypassing traditional network operators and allowing unfettered third-party access to mobile devices and their users. Indeed evolutions of the current computing devices such as MOTES and SmartDust (using nanotechnology) will revolutionise wide area communications and also provide a range extremely low cost of wireless sensors which can measure a wide range of specific parameters, such as pollution; noise; temperature; speed and direction; and vehicle presence - as well as provide pervasive vehicle to roadside communications which will open up new opportunities for configuration of road user charging systems and the basis for charging. Studies are currently underway at Newcastle University to evaluate this technology with a trial of prototype devices deployed in the City.

With the appropriate level of intelligent infrastructure in the form of MANETS built using wireless sensors, vehicles will be constantly in communications with other vehicles nearby as well the roadside infrastructure. This lends itself to a very discrete form of road pricing, whereby congestion or pollution hotspots can be priced higher than less effected parts of the road network, whilst cities and road authorities can charge appropriately to meet their demand management objectives. Since a National system is currently on the political agenda, one can use the premise that this could be used to fund an intelligent wired and wireless infrastructure for roads and streets (and thus connecting into other infrastructure and buildings) in the built environment. One could also argue that this revenue generating infrastructure could form the basis of a backbone for other applications and services – such as traffic control and disaster recovery.

MANET AND SMARTDUST TECHNOLOGY TRIALS IN NEWCASTLE Research into current Smartdust technology called Motes (see Figure 5) and their configuration into MANETs using on-road trials in Newcastle (The ASTRA project) has already shown that they are a flexible new technology that can offer dynamic solutions to meet complex traffic scenarios and innovative demand management strategies. They have never before been put to use for these applications and work is ongoing to define their role in ITS. However early indications have suggested great promise.

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Figure 5: Current wireless sensor technology and a vision of the future

The pervasive nature of the technology enables cars to be ‘always connected’ to the infrastructure in the same way that home broadband users enjoy ‘always-on’ Internet access thus opening up the scope for an intelligent, configurable ITS infrastructure that will be available for a range of services to support travel and travellers. Thus road users will perceive direct benefits from the introduction of the technology thereby easing user acceptance. The costs of building and maintaining the infrastructure could be amortised over many such services delivered by third-party providers. Road user charging will be just another application as far as the technology is concerned eliminating the need for an expensive stovepipe solution.

Figure 6: Pervasive vehicle and infrastructure for Charging

using Mobile Adhoc Networks and Motes

The technology trial is relevant to road user charging in a number of ways:

• Vehicle position is implicitly determined whenever a vehicle is in contact with the infrastructure as shown in Figure 6. This contact information is communicated via the infrastructure or vehicle to vehicle until it reaches back-office systems via the Internet. The Newcastle trial collects vehicle position information and routes this to the Internet via an access point in the International Centre for Life and hence to a database residing on servers on the University campus.

• The charging scheme may be implemented using a combination of in-vehicle and back-office applications. The Newcastle trial will implement a simple application to present vehicle location information via a website (http://research.cs.ncl.ac.uk/astra).

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• Updates to road user charging applications due to changes is policy may be delivered over the air using the radio network. The Newcastle trial is already using the radio network to deliver software updates to individual Motes.

• Mote sensors may be used to aid enforcement. In a project separate from ASTRA, on-board magnetometers are being trialled as a means of detecting vehicle presence. In this way, vehicles which are not equipped with wireless devices or which have inadvertently or deliberately disabled their devices can be detected and secondary enforcement measures (eg cameras) triggered.

• The pervasive deployment of devices means that evasion of a road user charge is almost impossible. The challenge to the wilful non-payer is no longer simply to crash the cordon, they must remain permanently invisible to a variety of technologies spread throughout the charging area.

The implications of this research prove that motes and their future nanoscale successors – Smartdust – will easily fill the gap left by microwave and cellular charging techniques and can quite easily replace them all together. Current developments at the Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (INSAT) at Newcastle University are taking the prototype concept of MOTES and integrating microprocessor, sensor and communication chips as the first step towards Smartdust.

SUMMARY The opportunity to harness the potential of new, intelligent infrastructure within the road transport sector will be a major research issue of the next decade. The ability to monitor, sense, manage and communicate with vehicles, the roadside control systems and the driver offers new and currently unexplored tools to manage the road network more efficiently. One key application of a more pervasive approach to control would be the possibility of using such a system to implement an incremental road-user charging system across the whole of the UK road network in a much more intelligent way than is currently envisaged by the Secretary for State for transport and his National Road User Charging Steering Committee which suggests that within 10 years the UK could use a GPS-based solution pay as you drive solution to replace the fixed price vehicle excise duty (car tax) by a variable charge relating to the usage made by the vehicle.

The implications of this research prove that Motes and their future nanoscale successors – Smartdust – will easily fill the gap left by microwave and cellular charging techniques and can quite easily replace them all together. Current developments at the Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (INSAT) at Newcastle University are taking the prototype concept of MOTES and integrating microprocessor, sensor and communication chips as the first step towards Smartdust.

One concern must be that there are now three parallel tracks of road use charging in the UK; local authority led congestion charging, customs-led (formerly treasury-led) HGV charging and the DfT-led National Charging scheme. Is this likely to send out confused and mixed messages to drivers? Will they be able to distinguish between which is a local hypothecated charge (the former) and which are national tax-raising measures (the latter two). In addition, tolling of DBFO infrastructure such as the BNNR adds further murkiness to the debate.

To accept one form of charging – as has been demonstrated in London is an achievement. To gain the buy-in of the general public and business to 3 different road user charges is optimistic to say the least – particularly in the UK where the likelihood that the charges will instantly reflect in a better road and general transport system is optimistic to say the least. Nevertheless the emergence of a potential new generation of mobile technologies to meet the future demands of widespread charging offers an unprecedented opportunity for the UK to again be at the forefront of future congestion charging ITS-research as well as leading the way on implementation.

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REFERENCES Blythe, P.T. (1998) Electronic Tolling in Europe: State of the art and future trends. Operation and Maintenance of Large Infrastructure Projects, pg 85 – 102, published by Balkema (ISBN 9054109637).

Blythe, P.T. and Hills, P.J (1994) Automatic Toll Collection and the Pricing of Road-Space. Chapter 7, Advanced Technology for Road Transport, pg119 -143, Published by Artech House, (ISBN0-89006-613-2)

Blythe, P T, Knight, P and Walker, J (2001): Is it Feasible for Automatic Number-Plate Recognition Systems to be used as the Primary Means for Road-User Charging? Proceeding of ITS-UK Annual Summer Conference, Cardiff, July.

Blythe, P.T. (2003) Road User Charging in the UK. Will we ever see an Emergence of Technical and Political Consensus? Proc. 10th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services, Madrid, November.

Buchanan Report (1963): Traffic in Towns. UK Ministry of Transport, HMSO, London.

GOL (2000): Road Charging Options for London, the Stationery Office, London. See also http://www.go-london.gov.uk/localregionalgov/rocol.htm.

Hills, P.J. and Thorpe, N. (1991) The DRIVE Project PAMELA: The Scope for Automated Pricing Systems. Traffic Engineering and Control, 32 (7/8), pg 364-370.

Hills, P.J. and Blythe, P.T. (1989) Paying your way. IEE Review, 35(10), 377-381, November.

Hills, P.J. and Blythe, P.T. (1990) Road pricing: solving the technical problems. Journal of Economic Affairs, pp 8-10, June/July.

Pigou, A C ( 1920): Wealth and Welfare, London, Macmillan.

Royal Commission of Environmental Pollution (1993) Final Report, HMSO, London.

Smeed Report (1964): Road pricing: The Economic and Technical Possibilities. UK Ministry of Transport, HMSO, London.

Vickrey, W.S. (1969) Congestion Theory and Transport Investment. American Economic Review 59 (Papers and Proceedings) pp 251-260.

Walters, A A (1961) The Theory and Measurement of Private and Social Cost of Highway Congestion. Econometrica 29(4), pp 676-697.

http://research.cs.ncl.ac.uk/astra ASTRA http://research.cs.ncl.ac.uk/astra.