Satellic Traffic Management is showing its first system for city or urban tolling, together with a new process for alerting drivers to their vehicle’s emission output.
The Germany-based company already operates the world”s largest satellite-based tolling system covering highways in its home country. Its new urban tolling system is being shown at the World Congress in a Volkswagen van that can give “live” demonstrations on New York’s roads.
Satellic says its system can use either satellite coverage, which involves placing an onboard unit in vehicles, or a booking system via the internet or other means for more occasional visitors to a city. The latter option is combined with automatic number-plate recognition for enforcement purposes.
“Both options use the same back-office system to handle customer relations and management, which enables users to start with one charging option then moving to another,” said Dr Marc-AndrĂ© Funk, Satellic’s director, innovation and research.
The emissions modelling system – being shown for the first time – is a value-added service that can run on the same onboard unit that would be used for the satellite-based tolling system. It monitors factors such as speed, rolling resistance, and how hard the engine is working to calculate the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. This information is then delivered to the driver in the form of green, yellow or red lights to show how economically he or she is driving.
The data from thousands of vehicles can be collated, anonymised and used to create maps that show city authorities which streets create high energy consumption on vehicles. Measures such as re-sequencing traffic lights can then be implemented to improve traffic flow and thus fuel efficiency.
Source : http://www.dailynews-online.com/itsworldcongress/default.asp?ID=130