Toll Collection Research Articles

Automatic Toll Collection System and Detection of Theft Vehicle by using RFID

The road transportation in India has growing day by day. The Indian road network carries about 65 percent of its Goods and about 85 percent of passengers. The national highways in India are now increased from 44,076 miles to 88,313 miles in 2018 to 2019. Along these road networks there are about 450 toll plazas totally in India. These toll plazas contribute some major part of India’s economy, it is estimated the toll revenue can swell up to 1 lakh crore rupees in next five years. In spite of this enormous growth the toll plazas have huge traffic during peak most of the time which incurs delay and loss human hours to surpass the toll. The proposed system focuses on an automatic toll collection system which will automatically debit the amount from vehicle owner’s bank. The automated registration and collection are based on using the RFID chip which is amalgamated in the vehicle’s windshield. By this method, the information about registration ID of the vehicle can be obtained therefore stolen vehicle can also be detected by this system as the vehicle ID is linked to the user’s account. Thus, this system provides fast and efficient surpassing of toll plazas without any delay.

Design of a Compact and Highly Efficient Energy Harvester System Suitable for Battery-Less Low Cost On-Board Unit Applications

This study addresses the general problem regarding the power supply in specific on-board unit (OBUs) solutions. In detail, this paper refers to a subset of the so-called electronic toll collection (ETC) applications such as assets control and vehicle identification, where simplicity, low costs, and maximum compactness represent the most important features. In this context, the next generation of OBUs, developed specifically with reference to such applications, will involve energy harvester-based battery-less techniques. Previous studies have mainly concentrated on performance optimization by achieving maximum energy transmission to the OBUs. This study discusses a technique suitable for both maximizing performance and minimizing the dimensions of transponder energy harvesters suitable for assets control and vehicle identification operating at 5.8 GHz. The technique assumes that an optimal source impedance exists that maximizes the energy transfer to the transponder, thus enabling its power supply in a battery-less configuration. We discuss a solution based on a compact patch antenna designed to exhibit this optimal source impedance to the RF-to-DC rectifier. This approach avoids the use of a lossy matching network. For the sake of comparison, the same function is compared with an equivalent development, which includes the interstage matching network between the antenna and the RF-to-DC rectifier. We introduce experimental results demonstrating that the ultracompact energy harvester optimized at −5 dBm of impinging power is capable of increasing both the charge current and energy efficiency from 340 to 450 μA and from 37% to 47%, respectively.

Impact of weather on freeway origin-destination volume in China

Existing literature has confirmed that severe weather events have a negative impact on travel behavior. Considering the features of long distances and long durations, intercity travel may be affected by the weather at the origin (O) point and at the destination (D) point. This paper aims to reveal the relationship between weather and OD volume of intercity travel by additional considerations of the weather difference between OD points and the lagging effect of various severe weather conditions. Travel data from toll collection system of freeway network in Shandong Province of China is extracted to investigate the weather effect on intercity travel demand. Three types of real-time weather variables (continuous variables of basic weather, dummy variables of severe weather, and weather difference variables between OD points) and two types of non-real-time weather variables (lagging variables and advance variables of severe weather) are combined to systematically analyze the weather effect. The results show that, temperature value and wind speed have no significant impact on intercity travel. Hot day, cold day, foggy day, strong breeze, heavy rain, rainfall, snowfall and visibility have significant impacts on freeway OD volume. Among these weather events, fog, heavy rain and snow usually have the most severe impact. Except for the weather at the O point, the differences in rainfall and snowfall between OD points have significant impacts on intercity travel demand, while the differences in temperature, wind speed, visibility between OD points do not. In addition, snow and heavy rain have the lagging and advance effects on freeway OD volume. The advance effect of snow and heavy rain lasts for one day and the lagging effect lasts for two days. Intercity travel demand is very sensitive to adverse weather on weekend days and during the afternoon. Comparative analysis of multiple OD pairs indicates that intercity travelers with less relevant experience are more sensitive to adverse weather. Findings from the paper will provide transport institutions with a practical guide for systematically investigating the weather effect on intercity travel demand. It can be applied in the intelligent transportation system to provide long-distance travelers with more accurate weather information and traffic guidance services.

Evaluation of Environmental Benefits Caused by Reservation-Based Shared Parking: A Case Study of Beijing, China

With the help of accurate parking navigation systems, sharing vacant private parking spaces with public travelers may have the potential of reducing the number of cruising vehicles and contribute to traffic emission reduction. However, the quantitative effects of such a measure are still relatively unknown in traffic management. In this article, we firstly established an optimal allocation model of shared parking spaces, which is a pure integer linear programming model of maximizing the number of served public vehicles to avoid cruising for parking. Further, the parking space allocation model was expanded to an estimation model that quantifies the effect of emission reduction. Secondly, a branch-and-cut algorithm was introduced as the core algorithm to solve the proposed models. Finally, detailed sensitivity analysis, based on empirical data collected by electronic parking toll collections and questionnaire surveys in Beijing, China, evaluated the proposed model and algorithm. The results indicate that shared parking can not only effectively reduce the cruising time and the number of vehicles, but also has significantly a positive effect on emission reduction. This research is helpful to provide theoretical support for alleviating parking pressure and environmental problems.

Имитационное моделирование работы пункта взимания платы с транспортных средств на внутригородской дороге

A large number of toll road projects with a barrier toll collection system are currently being implemented in Russia. Therefore, it seems relevant to study the toll plaza as an element of the transport infrastructure. Insuffi cient attention to the issues of assessing current and predicted intensity on TPscan cause regular traffi c congestions on toll roads. The goal of this study is to build a simulation model that allows to evaluate the capacity of the toll collection point during the operation of the toll road at different traffi c fl ow rates, taking into account the ratio of different types of vehicles and user behavior errors. Visual observation materials are used, the research method is discrete-event simulation of PVP using AnyLogic software, processing of the results is performed in the statistical package R. The toll point (TP) the Western High-Speed Diameter toll road in St. Petersburg, Russia was considered as a case for the study.As a result was build simulation model of TP was developed, taking into account the traffi c specifi cs and user behavior errors. Conducted experiments established the peak traffi c intensities, when traffi c congestion begins to form at the TP, with different ratios of electronic toll collection usage. During the analysis, few cases of service time distribution were considered — from low to high traffi c intensities. Main conclusions of the study: -for the low intensity case, the results of the analysis showed the splitting of the total distribution of the service time into two distributions for different operating modes of toll lanes, — for high intensity, the infl uence of user behavior on service time distribution was revealed, — for each case, the parameters of the gamma laws of service time distribution were determined, — in case of insuffi cient throughput capacity, the TP stops working effi ciently, and service time distribution increases, regardless of the type of payment. Estimated peak hours of TP operation, when there is a potential for congestion at the TP were defi ned. Possible ways of further increase thetoll collection system throughput capacity for the TP were indicated.

Electronic Tolling Boom

The electronic toll collection industry continues to show strong growth, with Covid-19 both helping and hindering its progress

Projection of the Electronic Toll Collection System in the Republic of Croatia

This paper deals with the topic of a modern electronic toll collection system that will be applied in the Republic of Croatia from the year 2022 onwards. The paper primarily analyses the existing toll collection systems in Croatia, as well as in the European Union. Modern electronic toll collection systems were analysed with an emphasis on the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system, because ANPR technology will be used in Croatia after the restructuring of road traffic occurs. ANPR is not a new technology, however in the last twenty years it has found its wider application. This happened mostly thanks to local and global infrastructural development and technological improvements therefore in turn infrastructure required for the operation of this system became cheaper. By applying the ETC and ANPR, Croatia will have a system in line with European directives and practices which are being applied in other European countries. The system will in turn significantly raise the quality of road traffic in Croatia and reduce its costs.

Assessing the Environmental and Economic Footprint of Electronic Toll Collection Lanes: A Simulation Study

Electronic toll collection (ETC) plays, as part of transport demand management (TDM) measures, an important role in preventing traffic congestion and improving the environmental conditions in urban and rural areas. An attempt is made in the framework of this paper to evaluate the overall performance of a toll station when a lane is dedicated to ETC. The case study refers to a toll station in the Thessaloniki Metropolitan Area, Greece. Scenarios considered specific traffic characteristics, variable toll booth setups, and different penetration rates of the ETC tag users for car and heavy vehicles. The tool used in the evaluation process was the PTV Vissim traffic simulation software. The operation of the toll station during a specific peak-hour period was simulated with the aid of the specific software. In total, 39 alternative scenarios were developed and compared to determine the level of penetration rate for which the ETC lane would be effective for different toll booth setups. Results showed that when the right lane of the toll station is converted to ETC lane, the penetration rate of this lane must be greater the 15% for the private vehicles and 20% for the heavy goods vehicles (HGV) to reduce traffic congestion and to improve environmental conditions. It was also found that when an additional ETC lane was introduced to the existing toll station set up, traffic congestion and the associated environmental conditions were much improved even for low penetration rates. It must be noticed that the results from the use of discounted cash flow methods like internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV) and benefit–cost ratio (BCR) showed that all economic indicators converge as penetration rate increases in all toll booth setups. Therefore, there is a specific penetration rate threshold above which the economic viability of the investment is secured. These findings can assist the design of an effective policy in terms of the optimized operation of a toll station and sustainable mobility planning.

A Model Tree-Based Vehicle Emission Model at Freeway Toll Plazas

With the increased concern over sustainable development, many efforts have been made to alleviate air quality deterioration. Freeway toll plazas can cause serious pollution, due to the increased emissions caused by stop-and-go operations. Different toll collections and different fuel types obviously influence the vehicle emissions at freeway toll plazas. Therefore, this paper proposes a model tree-based vehicle emission model by considering these factors. On-road emissions data and vehicle operation data were obtained from two different freeway toll plazas. The statistical analysis indicates that different methods of toll collection and fuel types have significant impacts on vehicle emissions at freeway toll plazas. The performance of the proposed model was compared with a polynomial regression method. Based on the results, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) of the proposed model were all smaller, while the R-squared value increased from 0.714 to 0.833. Finally, the variations of vehicle emissions at different locations of freeway toll plazas were calculated and shown in heat maps. The results of this study can help better estimate the vehicle emissions and give advice to the development of electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes and relevant policies at freeway toll plazas.

Spatio-temporal variability in black carbon concentrations at highway toll plaza: Comparison between manual and electronic toll lanes

The quantification of the differences in the magnitudes of black carbon (BC) concentrations between electronic and manual toll lanes is necessary to understand the impacts of toll plazas to air pollution. This study investigated the space-time distribution of BC concentrations and compared the BC pollution profiles between traffics and toll collection lanes of an urban highway toll plaza in Shanghai. Experiments were carried out between August 15 and August 22, 2019. The mean BC concentrations at east-westbound manual toll collection (MTC) lanes were 17.8 and 14.8 μg m−3, respectively, while the counterpart values for the electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes were 7.7 and 9.2 μg m−3, respectively. Moreover, parallel measurements at urban background site yielded mean BC level ranges between 3.4 and 2.8 μg m−3. The traffic volumes through the east-westbound ETC and MTC lanes were estimated as 489 and 347 vehicles h−1, respectively. Although ETC-lane traffic was ~1.4 times higher than that of the MTC lanes, owing to the toll collection method, the BC concentrations at the MTC lanes were 1.6–2.3 times higher than those at the ETC lanes and 4.8–5.9 times higher than that of the urban background site. As per multivariate regression analysis, it was found that the variations in BC concentrations were caused by traffic emissions and influenced by the local background BC levels, influences of wind speed and humidity were also determined. This study found that at highway toll plazas, when compared with MTC lanes, ETC lanes can contribute to reducing BC emissions by ~50%.

BEHT: Blockchain-Based Efficient Highway Toll Paradigm for Opportunistic Autonomous Vehicle Platoon

Autonomous vehicle platoon is a promising paradigm towards traffic congestion problems in the intelligent transportation system. However, under certain circumstances, the advantage of the platoon cannot be fully developed. In this paper, we focus on the highway Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) charging problem. We try to let the opportunistic platoon pass the ETC as a whole. There are three main issues in this scenario. Firstly, the opportunistic platoon is temporarily composed; vehicles do not trust each other. Secondly, single vehicle may try to escape from the ETC charging by following the platoon. Finally, platoon members may collude with each other and try to underreport the number of vehicles in the platoon so as to evade payment. To solve these challenges, we propose a blockchain-based efficient highway toll paradigm for the opportunistic platoon. The driving history, credential information of every registered vehicle, is recorded and verified from the blockchain. A roadside unit (RSU) is adopted to distinguish the single vehicle from the platoon and in charge of lane allocation. Additionally, an aggregate signature is introduced to accelerate the authentication procedure in the RSU. We analyse the potential security threats in this scenario. The experimental result indicates that our scheme is efficient and practical.

Toll Plaza Lane Choice and Lane Configuration Strategy for Autonomous Vehicles in Mixed Traffic

Toll plazas are one kind of highway node that pose a challenge to the flow of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Some toll roads have open road tolling (ORT), which makes it easier and more efficient for AVs, but most toll plazas do not have ORT. The authors developed a decision model to assist AVs in choosing the right lane that involves two main indicators, the rod speed (SRi) and the decision-making value (DSRi). The decision model was applied to a six-lane toll plaza with manual toll collection (MTC), electronic toll collection (ETC), and electronic toll collection for AVs toll types. The suitable lane configurations for the varying percentages of AVs in traffic were as follows: at 10% AV, the optimal lane configuration was 4 MTC and 2 ETC/AV (4M2EA), at 30% AV it was 3M3EA, at 40%–60% AV it was 3M2EA1A, and at 70% AV it was 2M2EA2A. Thus AVs should share toll lanes with ETC manned vehicles before the population of AVs reaches 30%; after that dedicated lanes may be introduced. It was also concluded that a 10% increase in AVs reduces delays by 9% if the populations of ETC and MTC vehicles are equal.

Short-Term Traffic Flow Intensity Prediction Based on CHS-LSTM

Short-term traffic flow prediction is an important basis of intelligent transportation systems. Its accuracy directly affects the performance of traffic control and induction. To improve prediction accuracy, in this paper, a traffic flow prediction model is proposed by combining hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC), standardized Euclidean distance (SED), and a long short-term memory network (LSTM). The proposed model is called the CHS-LSTM model. In this model, HAC is used to carry out cluster analysis on the original traffic flow data sample set of target detection sections. Based on the results of cluster analysis, traffic flow data are divided into several categories. For different categories of traffic flow, SED is used to calculate the spatial correlation of the road network where the target sections are located, and the K sections most relevant to the target detection sections are used in the construction of an input data matrix for LSTM. The prediction result with the minimum root-mean-square error is regarded as the final prediction result. The electronic toll collection data of Taiwan are used as the fundamental data in this paper to verify the performance and effectiveness of the CHS-LSTM model. The experimental results indicate that the CHS-LSTM model can effectively improve the prediction accuracy of LSTM. Moreover, compared with well-known models generally used for predicting the intensity of traffic flow, our proposed model also shows its superiority.

A Model of Interactive Traffic Management System and Traffic Data Analysis

The Study introduces a model of interactive traffic management system with a goal of controlling traffic flow, vehicle tracking, traffic control, law enforcement and automated toll collection. The intelligent transport system is one of the principal components of modern urbanization and the current systems are not automated and human error-related. To achieve these goals fifty vehicles seven days data have been analyzed through statistical tools. Data used for this study were collected from Prohori, Onnorokom Electronics Limited. All results was focused on only law enforcement and all analysis results was done using a data mining software named WEKA workbench. Several algorithms were used to find out gaps between engine on time and idle time, detect vehicle which violated rules and classify them for law enforcement and predict vehicle route for next day

RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID) AND EASE OF LIFE

The usage of RFID technology is rapidly increasing. The RFID system provides distinct advantages over the traditional barcode system. The RFID technology is being used in many areas like toll collection, shopping and retail, agriculture, transportation, industries, academics etc. There are some limitations also with the RFID technology including the privacy issues. This paper describes some of the RFID uses which result in ease of life.

A Review Paper on Automatic Number Plate Recognition System

Number plate recognition brings a drastic improvement for the city traffic enhancement. It provides the direction in which the steps should be taken for working of an effective intelligent transportation system. ANPR have become necessity for traffic control management due to rapid increment of vehicles. The main aim of ANPR is to monitor traffic and for security purpose. Recognition of number plate uses image processing techniques and latest technology in detecting characters on vehicle license plates automatically. In recent years, there are many technological developments in recognizing license plate area of research. Image processing protocols like OCR technology allow the traffic surveillance to deal with several problems that occurs in criminal investigation, toll collection, monitoring traffic, controlling speed, parking management etc. For efficient management of traffic and mass surveillance in transportation system, an ANPR system is essential. With the aid of image processing algorithms and vehicle images dataset, it becomes possible to monitor traffic at a large scale. Vehicle images are helpful for recognizing characters on license plates by performing image segmentation, feature extraction and character recognition. Data collected through captured images are utilized in the commercial applications, law enforcement, traffic applications etc. The software examines the vehicle picture as an input image that results in displaying the plate numbers. The system with image processing used reliably for traffic detection where modification of the technologies enables an accurate acknowledgement of vehicle number plates. There are several ANPR systems developed, working on character recognition of LP by the help of image processing technique. This paper reviews the performance by researchers in this particular area towards meeting goals of transportation system. It also provides major issues and challenges in this field.

A Highly Reliable, 5.8 GHz DSRC Wake-Up Receiver with an Intelligent Digital Controller for an ETC System.

In this article, a highly reliable radio frequency (RF) wake-up receiver (WuRx) is presented for electronic toll collection (ETC) applications. An intelligent digital controller (IDC) is proposed as the final stage for improving WuRx reliability and replacing complex analog blocks. With IDC, high reliability and accuracy are achieved by sensing and ensuring the successive, configurable number of wake-up signal cycles before enabling power-hungry RF transceiver. The IDC and range communication (RC) oscillator current consumption is reduced by a presented self-hibernation technique during the non-wake-up period. For accommodating wake-up signal frequency variation and enhancing WuRx accuracy, a digital hysteresis is incorporated. To avoid uncertain conditions during poor and false wake-up, a watch-dog timer for IDC self-recovery is integrated. During wake-up, the digital controller consumes 34.62 nW power and draws 38.47 nA current from a 0.9 V supply. In self-hibernation mode, its current reduces to 9.7 nA. It is fully synthesizable and needs 809 gates for its implementation in a 130 nm CMOS process with a 94 × 82 µm2 area. The WuRx measured power consumption is 2.48 µW, has −46 dBm sensitivity, and a 0.484 mm² chip area.

Electronic Toll Collection System in Bangladesh: Challenges and Prospects

Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system using radio frequency identification (RFID) is a digital technology that allows vehicles to pass through the toll plaza without stopping for toll payment. The most notable advantage of this technology is that it eliminates congestion near the toll booths. Toll operators could also be benefitted from the implementation of ETC. In this study, problems and prospects of introducing ETC in Bangladesh have been assessed with the help of the Questionnaire Survey and Key Informant Interview. A total of nine samples were surveyed. It was revealed from the study that there are both problems and prospects of introducing ETC in Bangladesh. Seventy percent of respondents know about the launching of ETC in Bangladesh. The respondents stalwartly perceive that ETC would help ease traffic jams created by long queues in the manual payment of toll. There are many challenges in introducing ETC in Bangladesh. As this is a new technology, it would take time to overcome the difficulties. Efforts from all corners can move the ETC forward and make excellent use of the modern and digital technology in the payment of toll in line with the viewpoint of Digital Bangladesh. Keywords: Electronic toll collection (ETC), radio frequency identification (RFID), toll plaza, questionnaire survey, key informant interview

P4TC—Provably-Secure yet Practical Privacy-Preserving Toll Collection

Abstract Electronic toll collection (ETC) is widely used all over the world not only to finance our road infrastructures, but also to realize advanced features like congestion management and pollution reduction by means of dynamic pricing. Unfortunately, existing systems rely on user identification and allow tracing a user’s movements. Several abuses of this personalized location data have already become public. In view of the planned Europeanwide interoperable tolling system EETS and the new EU General Data Protection Regulation, location privacy becomes of particular importance. In this paper, we propose a flexible security model and crypto protocol framework designed for privacy-preserving toll collection in the most dominant setting, i.e., Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) ETC. A major challenge in designing the framework at hand was to combine provable security and practicality, where the latter includes practical performance figures and a suitable treatment of real-world issues, like broken onboard units etc. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first in the DSRC setting with a rigorous security model and proof and arguably the most comprehensive formal treatment of ETC security and privacy overall. Additionally, we provide a prototypical implementation on realistic hardware which already features fairly practical performance figures. An interaction between an onboard unit and a road-side unit is estimated to take less than a second allowing for toll collection at full speed assuming one road-side unit per lane.

Effect of Implementing Electronic Toll Collection in Reducing Highway Particulate Matter Pollution.

Highway vehicle emissions can result in adverse health problems to nearby residents and workers, especially during traffic congestion. In response, the policy to implement electronic toll collection (ETC) has helped alleviate traffic congestion, as compared to manual toll collection (MTC) and has led to reduced air pollution and improved public health. However, the effect of ETC in reducing particulate matter polluting the air is not well understood, especially in the ultrafine particle (UFP) range (particle diameter <100 nm). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate how ETC affects the traffic pattern and air quality, especially UFP and PM2.5. We selected a site in Tainan, Taiwan, and measured UFP and PM2.5 concentrations before and after the construction of the ETC system. The computed traffic volumes during peak travel periods (7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM) respectively, accounted for approximately 23-25% and 14-18% before and after the implementation of ETC, indicating that peak traffic volumes were more homogeneous after ETC. Moreover, the results indicate that the full implementation of ETC can help reduce UFP number concentrations and PM2.5 mass concentrations in the highway downwind area by 4 × 103 #/cm3 and 20.5 μg/m3, respectively. After the full implementation of the ETC, significant reductions in both the UFP number concentration and PM2.5 mass concentration were seen. Furthermore, excessive lifetime cancer risks (ELCR) from exposure to PM2.5 and UFP together were reduced 49.3% after the implementation of the ETC. Accordingly, ETC not only helps alleviate traffic congestion but also reduces traffic emissions and lifetime cancer risk for people living or working near highways.