Transport Technology Consultants - Technology strategies for telematics and road user charging

1.Services

Transport Technology Consultants (TTC) delivers advisory and interim management services for companies and public authorities wishing to exploit Telematics technologies for Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) and Road User Charging (RUC). The aim of TTC is not solely limited to the design of charging schemes but the delivery through to final acceptance and operations.

TTC offers the following services:

• End-to-end scheme design and delivery:
• • ETC for roads, bridges and tunnels
  • Urban congestion charging for cities and towns
  • TDP (Time, distance and place) charging
  • National and regional road pricing
• Enforcement strategy development; resourcing, specification of evidential capture technologies
• Trials design and management
• Business case development
• Procurement strategy development
• Market analysis (competitive trends, pricing, teaming approaches)
• Business rules / workflow design
• User account development, including service differentiators and customer interfaces
• Charge point design
• Development of legislation, regulations and ordinances
• Vendor due diligence
• Standards and interoperability profile development.

2.History

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With equipment normally used to automate factories the founder of TTC, Andrew Pickford, designed an end-to-end demonstration ETC system in 1988 as part of the UK’s first trial at Dartford River Crossing in the UK, Europe’s busiest toll plaza. The Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) system had previously been used in the world’s first commercially operated ETC system in Ålesund (Norway). Demonstrations of the same DSRC technology followed in Hong Kong at the New Hong Kong Tunnel Company then on an extended basis at Tate’s Cairn Tunnel. Andrew also project managed trials in China, Malaysia, Brazil and France over the period to 1994, culminating in successful demonstrations on the Sawgrass Expressway in Florida, the New Hampshire Turnpike then on the New York State Thruway Authority (NYSTA) as part of the competitive trials as part of the first E-ZPass technology procurement.

TTC formally started in 1995 and project managed the delivery of a DSRC charge point system simulator as part of the "Rekening Rijden" research programme in the Netherlands. Since then, commissions have included:

• Business case development for accounts-based charging for a UK local authority
• Development of requirement specifications and multi-vendor proposal assessment for a UK local authority procurement
• Design authority for a consortium bidding for the UK’s Lorry Road User Charging (LRUC) scheme
• Advisor to UK Local Authority on international use of ETC and RUC
• Consultant to a UK Local Authority bidding for the UK’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF)
• Management of multi-vendor urban charge point trials to assess performance envelope
• Development of university-level training programme in Road User Charging
• UK-based project manager to deliver a charging system for DIRECTS
• Early stage support to develop ETC in South Africa including selection of DSRC specifications, definition of spectrum requirements and development of a national interoperability specification
• Multi-stage due diligence of a novel vehicle sensor product through to on-track trials
• Feasibility study for an evidential strategy based on Electronic Registration Information (ERI)
• OBU cost analyses for Dutch and UK government clients
• Advisor to UK aerospace services supplier on the business case for asset location technologies.

TTC provides articles for industry leading journals including Thinking Highways and has presented at ITS World Congresses, IBTTA Technical Workshops, TRB Annual Meetings, ITS Middle East conferences and the IET’s annual RUC conferences meetings. Andrew Pickford has been chair of the ITS (UK) Road User Charging Interest Group since November 2003.