Jan/Feb 2006

Although it may be at least eight years before Britain finally gets a telematics-based road user charging system, the company behind Germany's Toll Collect system is determined to be in the running for implementing it when it comes.

That was one of the clear conclusions to emerge in January at the launch of a new company, Satellic, by Germany's T-Systems (part of Deutsche Telekom). It will aim to play a major role in the evolution of new road-user charging systems worldwide, and especially in Europe, and has already set up a British base to spearhead operations here.

T-Systems is one of the main partners in Toll Collect, which has been running the toll system on Germany's autobahns since the start of last year. The other main partner, DaimlerChrysler, is not part of the Satellic initiative, but at the launch advisory board chairman Christoph Bellmer played down its absence.

"DaimlerChrysler plays an IT kind of a role in Toll Collect," he said, "and it's not something that relies specifically on their participation."

Through its involvement in Toll Collect, Satellic claims that it has a two- to three-year lead on any other company bidding to implement similar road charging operations. It points out that it also operates the biggest such system in the world.

Satellic draws confidence from predictions that 20 billion euros will be invested in traffic management equipment and services in Europe by 2010. It cites analysis by Frost & Sullivan suggesting double-digit growth in the European electronic toll systems market.

Bellmer downplayed the long-term significance of non-telematics solutions such as Austria's which rely on microwave technology, suggesting that any country choosing such a system would eventually have to upgrade to a GPS-based solution such as Satellic's.

He accepted that road charging projects were often best handled in partnership with authorities or other organisations in the specific location involved, and said Satellic would expect to form such partnerships.

Bellmer acknowledged that in the wake of the UK Government's climb-down last year over its contentious LRUC scheme, "the UK approach has shifted towards traffic management," but said this would not affect the company's determination to be involved in future projects.

We asked him whether the company differentiated between nationwide road-user charging schemes and such traffic management (localised congestion charging) schemes, which now seem more in favour in the UK.

He told m.logistics Satellic would be equally capable of handling both types of system, but left no doubt that it preferred the holistic approach. "An overall solution will work much better if it's possible to go that way," he said.

The company draws strength from the fact that its parent Deutsche Telekom has deep pockets. "These are huge projects," Bellmer said, "and size really counts. Governments will want to work with big partners that have the power to push these projects through."

T-Systems, Satellic's parent company, is linked to the T-Mobile phone network. It employs 51,000 people worldwide, and is a partner in a consortium which is one of the operators providing communications technology to Europe's Galileo positioning satellite network.

• Eight European countries are currently planning to introduce a toll system, according to T-Systems. They are the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belgium, Sweden and Hungary. It says China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the USA have also expressed interest in satellite-based toll technology.