What is EETS

Electronic toll systems (or Electronic Fee Collection (EFC)  were introduced in several European countries in the early 1990s. Most systems operate with an on-board unit communicating the vehicle’s characteristics to the road operators in view to determining the toll, for instance based on the vehicle's weight and size.
However, the various national and local electronic road toll systems are generally incompatible and can only communicate with their respective on-board units. These non-interoperable road toll systems especially hinder international road transport. For example, to travel from Portugal to Denmark five or more on-board units might be needed on the vehicle's dashboard, each unit being covered by a particular contract for a particular road operator. For the transporter this entails time-consuming paperwork and costly administrative burden in reconciling travel data, received
invoices, contracts clauses and payment orders.

It is essential for such systems to be interoperable in Europe, especially across national borders, to enable road users to circulate throughout the European Union without having to be concerned by charging procedures changing from one country or region to another and without having to install specific equipment to access different charging zones. This does not require one single service provider but there should be interoperability between the different systems so that paying charges would be a seamless operation.

The "EETS" Directive (2004/52/EC) faces the main issues:

• technical interoperability: concerning on-board equipment as well as positioning and communication technology
• procedural interoperability: contractual agreements between infrastructure operators and toll payment service providers
• treatment of "non-equipped users": how to handle vehicles with no equipment or equipment which is not compatible
• protection of personal data and system security

This is for heavy goods vehicle (HGV) over 3.5 tons, not for private cars.

The European Commission Decision (on 6. October 2009) lays down the rights and obligations of toll chargers, service providers, and users. Users will be able to subscribe to the
service provider of their choice. Toll chargers will communicate the tolls due to the service providers, who will eventually invoice the users. Tolls paid via EETS may not
exceed the corresponding national or local tolls.

Since on of the main issues of an EETS-Provider is managing complex billing processes, and Softways have more than 15 years experience in Road Toll Central Systems, we offer expert consulting in all areas of EETS:

• Roadmap to an EETS-Provider: Main tasks, business processes
• Be compatible to European Standards
• Setup the Central System
• Managing millions of transactions, billing billions of Euro.

Just mail to info (at) softways.de