Towards fair and efficient charging for heavy goods vehicles

In this paper, we have investigated the important factors affecting pavement damage caused by HGVs and how current road track cost allocation methods and HGV charging systems do not, at present, satisfy fully the EC´s requirements for a fair, efficient and equitable means of charging for road use. We discuss the requirements for developing a charging system for HGVs which address some of the main weaknesses with current charging methods. It is hoped that this will make considerable progress towards achieving a fairer, more efficient and transparent means of allocating costs for pavement damage between individual HGVs. This paper presents the research undertaken to develop such a charging system for HGVs and the results from initial on-road field trials are scheduled to be carried out in the coming months with different HGV types (e.g. 2 and 3 axled HGVs) to investigate further the performance of the various components of the system in a more realistic operating environment.