Forth Road Bridge enters new era

A new state of the art road tolling system has been installed on the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland, UK. The new system makes payment and collection of the tolls easier and more efficient. Safety has also been improved for both staff working on the bridge and the travelling public, making the Forth Road Bridge one of the most sophisticated road tolling systems in Europe.

Spanning the Forth Estuary in Scotland, the Forth Road Bridge is not only an iconic masterpiece of engineering, but a vital link in Scotland’s transport infrastructure. As such it is imperative that the bridge is operated to the highest possible standards of efficiency. Since its opening in 1964 the Bridge has seen vehicle journeys across the bridge rise from 4 million a year to over 24 million – a volume increase which brings its own challenges for my team. Not least of these is staying at the forefront of European road user issues such as safety, maintenance and, in particular, tolling.

Until recently the Forth Road Bridge was operating a toll registration system that was well past its use-by date. As much of the system had become obsolete, we have implemented a change from the archaic to the state of the art, introducing a new electronic toll plaza and payment system that is now one of the most sophisticated road charging schemes in Europe.

The new system will give the bridge a state of the art combined electronic and manual tolling system that meets the latest industry standards for interoperability and brings it into line with European standards. Payment and collection of tolls will be much easier and both the bridge user’s experience and the efficiency of the toll collection will be enhanced.

The solution

It is a common misconception that the introduction of the new tolling system will speed up the vehicle throughput and improve the flow of traffic over the bridge. The bridge’s maximum capacity is 3,500 vehicles per hour, which was already achievable with the old manual system. Electronic tolling cannot improve upon this figure. Any increase in processing throughput would in fact have a negative effect by swamping the merging zone, between the seven toll lane exits and the two lanes of the bridge abutment, increasing the likelihood of road traffic accidents.

The issues we faced were outdated booths that gave little protection to our operatives and an old fashioned lane configuration that did not assist in the merging manoeuvre. As improving the health and safety of the travelling public and our staff was a key priority, the solution we put together sought to address as many safety issues as possible. The measures we implemented included: the provision of longer toll islands with re-directive kerbs to promote better vehicle alignment and a slower approach speed; a concrete bullnose to protect the toll collector from runaway vehicles, complete with a crash cushion to help protect the driver and passengers if such a vehicle were to strike the bullnose frontally; better road markings, fog lights and advance information signs; better crossing control for toll collectors as they transit the plaza to their toll booths; positive pressure air supply to the toll booths to exclude exhaust fumes as far as possible, and the provision of carbon monoxide detection, smoke and fire alarms.

Basic concepts

The process is already underway with the opening of the modern new plaza last year for cash collection. Equipped with modern computer systems and new robust tollbooths, the plaza and back office will operate on one of the most sophisticated customer handling infrastructures in the UK. As with many modern systems, it includes video enforcement on the plaza, capturing front and rear images of vehicles as they pass through and importing images to individual customers’ accounts.

The next stage is the introduction of our newly branded eTag which will see the transition from old to new finally complete. The eTag combines in-lane technology using Dedicated Short Range Communication operating at 5.8 GHZ, allowing full integration of the system along with an electronic payment collection based on pre-paid accounts. As with the M6 toll and others across Europe, regular travellers fit an on-board unit (electronic tag) to their vehicle. The unit itself is about the size of a cigarette packet and fits neatly under the rear view mirror. The Road Side Equipment (RSE) works via eight aerials based above the toll lanes. Communicating to a lane controller via a PC system and to the central IT tolling system by fibre optic, each eTag has a unique encoded ID which, when interrogated by the RSE, confirms the account identity. The result is swift and efficient debit payment which minimises fraud and expense.

While FETA is not the first to introduce electronic tolling, many aspects of our new systems are at the forefront of new technology. The consumer will benefit from financial savings through a discount system, the accessibility of a web based approach, the flexibility of varied payment options and the resulting time saving. When the system is fully operational I believe the public will see the benefits and become our best ambassadors.

Launch, rollout and future

Limited trials of the new eTag are already underway. We are working with large scale fleet operators and are already building up a useful bank of experience to allow fine tuning before a consumer roll out in 2007. Given the nature of systems of this kind, the roll out will be ‘soft’ and will overlap with the phasing out of our current voucher system for regular users.

With the installation of the system complete and full customer roll out imminent, my team is now addressing the issue of introducing credit card payment in the lanes. Changes to UK Chip & PIN standards impose time and communication constraints that are incompatible with our needs. The average tolling transaction at the Forth takes seven seconds, but online verification can take anything up to 30 seconds for a credit card. The operational model with tolling of low value transactions and a need for high throughput speeds has generally proved incompatible with standard transaction formats required under Chip & PIN, which include the need for online verification. We have to develop a solution that meets bank presentation and format standards, but which also addresses the operational constraints within tolling such as the issue of verification time. The result is that we are at the forefront of developing a bespoke operational solution for tolling with other tolling operators, APACS and the DfT (Department for Transport). The answer is likely to be in line with that agreed by petrol retailers who faced similar problems for their unique sales needs. Their solution provides transaction handling which is acceptable to the banks combined with maintaining operational throughput speeds that would be acceptable for tolling operators. We anticipate that the final operational standard will be confirmed within the next few months, thus allowing card payments to be accepted at toll booths in future.

Throughout the project an important issue has been the requirement for the new system to be compliant with OMISS (Open Minimum Interoperability Specification Suite) standards of interoperability. OMISS is the UK implementation of the European electronic tolling legislation, the ultimate aim of which is to allow customers to register with a single provider and transit any other interoperable tolled facility across Europe. The main problem in terms of interoperability has been that, during this contract, only one of the three OMISS volumes has not been released. We will therefore have to address this retrospectively. Despite such problems, it is anticipated that FETA will be the first operator in the UK to have a fully OMISS compliant electronic tolling system.

Conclusion

I am proud to lead a team of experts which remains at the forefront of suspension bridge management. My team shares innovative bridge management techniques and wider suspension bridge issues with an international forum. Cracking the challenges of introducing electronic tolling is only one of many complex issues we continue to face, but we are confident that we are well on the way and that we are now operating one of the most sophisticated tolling systems in Europe.