SIEMENS

Christoph Wondracek needs just a few moves to start the system. First he uses suction cups to fasten a small non-descript box to the windshield, after which he inserts a plug into his vehicle's cigarette lighter. “Now we can get going,” he says as he turns the key. The car Wondracek is now driving through the streets of Vienna is a laboratory on wheels. Siemens is using the vehicle to test its latest ideas for making future road traffic more economical and more environmentally friendly.

“This onboard unit contains all the technology we need,” Wondracek explains. The unit's navigation system utilizes satellite signals to pinpoint the vehicle's current location, and then sends the positioning data to a central computer via GSM technology familiar to cell phone users. This technology can be employed to set up a highway toll system for trucks or an inner-city congestion charge system for reducing traffic during rush hours.

Siemens is developing these state-of-the-art solutions in Vienna, Austria, where it operates a Toll Systems Competence Center that it established in 2006. “We were already working on toll systems before that,” says the center's director, Dr. Karl Strasser, “but developments didn't start moving toward extensive complex systems until a few years ago.“ That's why Siemens is utilizing the center as a base for pooling the required expertise from throughout its worldwide organization. As a result, experts from the fields of satellite navigation, mobile data transfer, traffic guidance, and other areas are now working together in Vienna.

Research at the center's labs is both virtual and physical. Specialists not only design onboard units that incorporate the latest navigation and data transfer technologies but also develop software that enables the reliable collection of hundreds of thousand of data sets. Whenever an urban congestion charge or highway toll system is being planned anywhere in the world, technicians in Vienna go to work on customized solutions that are included in the company's bids.

No Toll Plazas Required. Strasser's core team comprises 40 specialists. Once a project is up and running, the teams are expanded to include experts from related areas. The acid test involved the introduction of a state-of-the-art truck toll system in Slovakia in the spring of 2010, for which Siemens supplied the onboard units and software. “One hundred of our people refined the various technologies before the system was launched,” Strasser reports.

Toll fees in Slovakia vary depending on whether a truck travels on a major highway or a state road. In similar projects, such as in the Czech Republic, toll plazas used to be set up along roads in a complicated and expensive process. Devices at the plazas receive a microwave signal transmitted via a small box in vehicles that use the roads.

But in Slovakia, Siemens embarked on a different approach—one that, for the first time, made it possible to eliminate the high level of investment required for toll plazas. Instead, trucks that travel on toll roads must now be equipped with an onboard unit like the one in Wondracek's car. This system can precisely measure the distance traveled, and thus the amount each shipping company will be charged for each vehicle. There are other potential benefits. For example, a country could decide to track the exact location of shipments of hazardous goods or animals in real time.

“The flexibility of this technology is unrivalled,” says Wondracek. For example, an onboard unit can be programmed in line with a truck engine's emission class and whether or not a trailer is being used. The toll fee can then be adjusted according to the vehicle's impact on the environment and road surface. A simple alteration to the software on the central computer is all that's required if a government decides to extend the system to other roads.

The Slovakian system has been successfully launched and 200,000 onboard units equipped with Siemens technology are now on the road in that country, which has to accommodate a high volume of international transit traffic. Domestically-registered trucks have a built-in onboard unit, while trucks passing through are issued a mobile device at the border. “This is a breakthrough,” says Wondracek, who has already been invited by governments all over Europe to carry out driving demonstrations with his vehicle and its equipment. France is planning a toll system similar to the one in Slovakia, as are Poland, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Belgium. “Demand is so high we can barely keep up with the work,” says Wondracek.