by Richard Cook, M.C.I.P., R. B. Cook Consulting.
Can electronic road pricing work in practice? The city of Trondheim, Norway has "made it so". The success of the Toll Ring reflects many factors specific to that city. Trondheim also offers lessons for North Americans as we continue to debate funding and traffic regulation issues and the role of electronic tolls. Of special interest are the many implementation tactics and design considerations Trondheim engineers and planners used to build public support and obtain political approvals for the toll ring.
Trondheim is a thousand year old city of 140,000 people located midway along the west coast of Norway. The city is the administrative centre for an area with a population of about 250,000. The number of cars per 1000 people is 380 compared to about 625 for Greater Vancouver. Traffic growth through the ancient city centre was causing many problems in the 1980's and a total collapse of the main road system was forecast. Air pollution, noise, through traffic on residential streets, increased traffic accidents and travel delays were all factors calling for an integrated solution.
The Plan: an integrated transportation plan for Trondheim was developed that included the following elements:
Objectives: the original objectives of the Trondheim Toll Ring were to:
How it Works: the Trondheim Toll Ring has twelve toll plazas which cordon the central area of Trondheim where 50,000 people live. The critical success factor is that most vehicles drive through a toll plaza without stopping. Vehicle identity is recorded electronically by scanning a "Q-FREE" tag attached to the inside of the front windshield. Tolls are recorded only on entry into the ring, exiting from the area is free.
Toll Pricing: peak period pricing is a feature of the electronic tag system. Transit, disabled-sticker vehicles and motorcycles pass free. Trucks pay double. After 5 p.m. on workdays, and on weekends or holidays, travel is free for all vehicles.
For users without an electronic tag, there is a coin or magnetic-card payment option at each toll station. These are accessed through a pull-over similar in design to a bus bay. License plates are photographed to track vehicles avoiding payment. At two of the twelve toll booths there are manual attendants. Overall, only one-in-five entries to central Trondheim is without a tag, and less than one-in-ten in the peak period.
Toll Collection: The Q-FREE tag user is billed either through monthly automatic debiting of a chequing account, or through debiting a prepaid account (e.g. a $100 prepaid credit is reduced by $1.60 on each entry). Half of the electronic tag subscribers pay by automatic debiting of their chequing account each month. Most others prepay $100 (500NK) on a regular basis. The remaining vehicles pay manually.
Local Road Closures: existing access routes across the cordon were closed, some in conjunction with the construction of the new city centre bypass. These closures were part of the integrated transportation plan.
Dealing with Complaints: if you disagree with the toll charges you can ask for a trace of your charges for up to 30 days. Most users find their own records show more trips through the tollgate than they have been charged for (largely because there is no charge for multiple entries within one hour).
Plaza Operations: with the electronic tag, vehicles pass through the toll plaza at normal driving speed. Even at vehicle speeds of 150 km/hr., the system can read the tag identity ten times as the vehicle passes through the toll. These features ensure smooth-flowing traffic using a simple, efficient user-pay system to finance transportation improvements in the Trondheim area.
Public Acceptance: The Trondheim Toll Ring is of interest not only for its technical design, but also for its subtle multifaceted approach to getting the project approved for opening in November 1991.
One of the main reasons the Trondheim Toll Ring was approved was that it was just one part of an integrated transportation investment plan. Funds raised by the tolls are earmarked for local transportation improvements. People know exactly where their toll money is being spent.
Improvements are not just for one mode, but include a new bypass, transit priority lanes, bicycling and pedestrian routes. The plan even goes so far as to install new insulated windows in homes abutting road construction.
A second implementation feature was that the electronic toll tag was given away free (cost of $22 each) to encourage high participation from opening day. Local gas stations distribute and install the tags as a business promotion.
The third factor was design which lowered operating costs. The technical design of the tags and toll plazas allowed ten of twelve toll plazas to be unattended. Operating costs have been below 10% of revenues, much better than the original objective of 20%. The cost of the toll plazas and implementation was repaid within 6 months of installation.
Privacy was a key issue for Norwegian drivers. The Trondheim implementation gave important consideration to protecting privacy. Vehicle data from the toll plazas is converted into charges on each bank account each night. The time/place information is then deleted from the database, as part of the legislation governing the toll ring authority. Information on who travelled where and when is not available to the police, transportation engineers or anyone outside the Trondheim Toll Authority (or to the toll authority after the day's data is converted to cash). There is also a system to allow for anonymous subscriptions. No one asked for the anonymous payment option, but it was important to overcome skepticism about privacy issues.
A fifth implementation factor was discount pricing. Electronic tag users benefit from cheaper tolls. A manual payment of $2.00 is reduced to $1.60 for electronic tag users in the AM peak period (20% discount), and to $1.20 in off-peak periods (40% discount). Tolls are collected only in one direction, only on weekdays, and only until 5 PM.
There were 45,000 tag users when the system first opened in November 1991, and 60,000 by June 1992. There was a major advertising push to sign-up tag users in the few months just before the toll ring opened. Humourous ads were a very important sales tool.
Without high participation in the electronic tag program from the outset, toll congestion would have been a serious problem. The toll plaza is designed for a minimum proportion (60-80%) of electronic tag users during peak period. If there are too many manual payers, the toll plaza will fail during peak hours with severe congestion. Today, over 80% of vehicles enter with a Q-FREE tag, and nearly 90% of peak period entries are tag users.
It was not recommended to open a toll road system immediately before an election. However, results from several user surveys show that public attitudes towards the toll ring shifted from two-thirds negative/very negative just prior to implementation to one-third negative/very negative two years after implementation. Local elected public officials were involved early in the design and planning of the toll ring.
All the toll plazas were designed within existing rights-of-way. This saved many months of time which would have been necessary if right-of-way was to be purchased from adjacent land owners.
While not comprehensive, these eight features of the Trondheim Toll ring illustrate how many considerations were taken into account before the toll system could get off the ground.
Public Concerns: The Trondheim Toll Ring is not without problems. First, it is tolerated, not loved. Secondly, while there have been changes observed in travelling hours and destination, traffic on the main roads leading to the city centre has not been substantially reduced by the Toll Ring. On the positive side, public transport has increased by 10-15%, reversing a trend to declining ridership. The third complaint is that 50,000 people live within the toll ring. These people drive in the city centre without paying any toll.
The Future: the future for electronic road pricing is exciting. Europe is expected to adopt a common standard for electronic tags in early 1996. Many cities are waiting to implement systems after a standard is adopted. Cities to watch include Barcelona, Bergen, Bologna, Dublin, Oslo and Stockholm.
Trondheim, of course, is ahead of most cities in having an operating, electronic road pricing system. The plan in Trondheim is to extend the toll ring to other routes where users pay according to length of travelled distance. Electronic toll collection will be used at parking lots and in car parks. One idea being explored to reduce traffic volumes is to display to the drivers exactly how much they are paying at the time they drive through the ring.
1. Hoven, Tore, The Trondheim Toll Ring, May, 1992 in "Land Use and Transportation in Cascadia: Where Do We Go From Here?" Resource Manual, 1995. The City Program. Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre.
2. Q-Free is a registered trademark of Micro Design AS, Norway
The source for this article was a seminar led by Mr. Tore Hoven, Head of Traffic Management, Public Roads Administration, County of Sor-Trondelag, Norway. The seminar was part of a conference entitled "Land Use and Transportation in Cascadia" held in Vancouver on November 16-17, 1995, sponsored by The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and The City Program at Simon Fraser University.