Abstract :
The Dutch government aims to replace road tax with a pay-per-kilometre charging scheme. E&T looks at the IT that will make it work. The UK government will be keeping a close eye on the ambitious national motorway road pricing scheme being finalised in the Netherlands. Approved last year (2008), the system should start charging commercial trucks for road usage by 2011, and expand to every vehicle by 2018. It will be based on a global navigation satellite system, (GNSS) anchored either on GPS or on the European Galileo satellite, which will track each vehicle´s progress on a per-kilometre basis so that road usage can be charged for according to the distance travelled. The on-board equipment (OBE), required by law in all but officially exempt vehicles, will record kilometres driven as well as where and when they were travelled. Recording the times of people´s travel also raises questions about potential privacy infringement. The Dutch authorities have pledged to transmit only ´aggregate data´ to the back office, and only to disclose detailed individual route and schedule information with the consent of the user. Each OBE will have a trusted element that ensures reports are digitally signed and encrypted prior to transmission.
