Consensus and confirmations at RCI Workshop

The RCI project held a successful workshop on 21 November at ERTICO, Brussels, which helped further define architecture and specifications regarding road charging.

The event brought together around 40 participants from industry, including all members of the RCI Forum. The European Commission was also represented.

During the workshop, the RCI consortium presented and discussed the most important areas for European road charging, as well as the minimum set of functional elements and interfaces that need to be specified and standardised for ensuring interoperability among the solutions. The discussions will help the RCI consortium to further define and improve the specifications for road charging.

 

 

Other key developments from the workshop include the consensus that was reached on the make-up of the core elements of the interoperable road charging architecture; and the understanding and awareness achieved on the key roles and responsibilities of the toll charger, the EETS (European Electronic Tolling) service provider and the service user. However, it was agreed that more needs to be done to increase further awareness and acceptance.

It was also agreed that the design of the architecture presented at the workshop can avoid pre-empting decision-making on functional requirements by future toll chargers and/or Member States. RCI stakeholders confirmed that the architecture presented at the workshop correctly reflects the responsibilities of the EETS provider and toll charger, and defines the relevant interfaces between these two entities.

The next steps for RCI in 2007 include a focus on the implementation of the prototypes and the development and start of the field trial sites. The final RCI Forum workshop on the validation results is envisaged for April or May 2008.