Outside the box

Toll collection revenues are growing and are a major source of funding for technology such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Vehicle-to-X (V2X) cooperative infrastructures. However, fracturing in the tolling industry has hampered development of systems for interoperability and increased adoption. Different technology systems are competing for dominance, especially between short-range systems, such as Radio Frequency Identification and Dedicated Short-Range Communications. Progress towards interoperability has been slow, and there is also a great deal of work to be done for wide-area applications. Tolling systems could be improved with a more holistic environment, enhancing traffic management products as a whole.