On-board unit (toll system)

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Recording device for the truck toll system

The on-board unit (OBU) is a device that is installed in trucks to enable automatic billing in a fee collection or toll system . There are now various OBUs on the market. Are known in Central Europe is especially the TRIPON devices of the Swiss company Fela Management AG (OBU in Switzerland in operation since 2000), the GoBox the company Europpass in in 2003, the toll system in Austria and of Grundig and Siemens VDO Automotive AG developed OBUs for the truck toll operated by Toll Collect in Germany . Since December 2012, Toll Collect has also been delivering OBUs from Grundig and Siemens. The French, Italian, Spanish (and other European countries) motorway operators are also familiar with OBUs for recording tolls.

On-board units from Toll Collect

The Toll Collect OBUs remain the property of Toll Collect and are only made available to the user. The vehicle owner must bear the costs for installation (around 250 euros), removal at the end of the contract and the corresponding follow-up costs (travel to and from the vehicle, idle time). The original plan was to collect a deposit of 300 euros at the start of the toll, which the user can use as a toll credit. In September 2004 this obligation was lifted. The installation of the first OBU devices began on May 1, 2003.

The OBUs are roughly the size of a car radio. They are produced by Grundig in the Braga plant (Portugal) and by Continental AG (formerly Siemens VDO Automotive AG ) in Villingen-Schwenningen . Around two thirds of the devices are manufactured by Conti in Villingen, the rest comes from Grundig. The Conti / Siemens OBU is based on the prototype originally developed by the rival consortium AGES.

The production costs of the OBU in the amount of around 500 euros per unit were covered by Toll Collect for the first 150,000 units. 300,000 on-board units , which the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development ordered in addition to the originally planned number, were billed to the ministry by Toll Collect at 150 million euros.

Device technology

The Toll Collect OBUs have a receiver for the GPS satellite positioning system operated by the USA , with which the position of the vehicle can be determined at any time. There is also a built-in GSM module and a memory that contains vehicle-specific information such as the number of vehicle axles , the emission class and the vehicle registration number, as well as the position data of all German motorways subject to tolls. From this data, together with the GPS signal, the on-board unit calculates the toll due during the journey and saves it in a data package. Once a certain amount of data has been reached, this is sent in the form of an SMS to the Toll Collect central computer via the GSM module.

The construction, the concept and the operation of the devices from Siemens and Grundig are different. The Siemens OBU is installed as a preprogrammed unit behind the windshield and has two-button operation. The Grundig device is divided into a small infrared - Transponder behind the windshield, and the actual on-board computer for by ISO 7736 standard insertion compartment in the dashboard. There are many buttons, but not all of them are enabled.

The software for the first OBU devices was developed by EFKON mobility GmbH (Berlin). It is known from media reports that parts of it also come from omp computer gmbh (Paderborn). (Ironically, the then Toll Collect managing director Michael Rummel was also on the supervisory board of this company at the time the contract was awarded.)

In December 2003 it became known that the software for the new OBUs would be completely redeveloped by Siemens and IBM .

Problems with the first generation of OBUs

Initially, Toll Collect could not deliver and install enough on-board units because of difficulties with the complex software of the devices. After the media and forwarding agents had been reporting for months about problems with the delivered OBUs, Toll Collect first admitted technical errors at the end of September 2003.

The on-board units

  • did not respond to input,
  • could not be switched off,
  • turned themselves off for no reason,
  • showed different toll levels on identical routes,
  • identified motorway routes as toll-free, although they are subject to tolls,
  • identified routes outside the motorway network as subject to a toll;
  • Siemens devices did not fit into the standardized installation slot for car radios. Mounting it on the dashboard can lead to safety problems due to the restriction of the driver's view and the risk of injury. The necessary general operating permit from the Federal Motor Transport Authority was only issued on October 4, 2003, several weeks after the originally planned start date for the toll.

20,000 devices (some speak of 35,000) from the manufacturer Grundig were supposed to be repaired as part of a recall campaign by the system operator Toll Collect. Among other things, a software update should be burned to the device EEPROM . A Grundig spokesman explained that you consider yourself to be a pure supplier of the hardware and that Toll Collect is responsible for the software .

It later became known that Michael Rummel , the then managing director of Toll Collect , had ordered the installation of the on-board units , even though he knew that they were not functional. The above-mentioned ability to update software via GSM radio, through which the software could have been updated shortly before the system was armed, probably played a role in this decision . Ironically, this function was also affected by the software problems, as it later turned out.

The new OBU generation

Since summer 2004 the new, revised OBU has been delivered by Toll Collect to the authorized workshops for installation. In terms of functionality, this corresponds to the first stage of the toll introduction, which began on January 1, 2005. According to previous reports, the OBU works flawlessly and has a reliability of over 99%.

With the introduction of the second stage of the toll from January 1, 2006, the OBU received its full functionality, i. H. updates of the operating data are possible via the " air interface ", which among other things serve to update the mileage allowance. In addition, it should also be possible to update the toll routes for new buildings, rededications or lane changes.

Number of built-in OBU

By August 2005, around 450,000 OBUs had been installed in German and foreign trucks, 45,000 of which were equipped with OBU software 2.0. By April 2005, around 284,000 OBU had been installed in German trucks. In addition, there are OBUs installed in foreign trucks. For example, around 33,100 trucks have been installed in Dutch, 20,500 in Polish, 14,700 in Austrian and 12,950 in Czech trucks.

In July 2014, around 804,000 vehicles were equipped with an on-board unit. An additional 85,000 vehicles are expected as a result of the reduction in the mandatory toll limit from 12 to 7.5 t planned for 2015.

On-board equipment for the EETS

As part of opening up national systems to third-party providers, on-board devices with standardized interfaces to the toll operator's systems are being developed. Cross-border toll collection is possible with just one device.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Notes on the on-board unit (toll system)
  2. heise.de, October 14, 2003
  3. German Bundestag (Ed.): Answer of the Federal Government to the small question of the MPs Dr. Valerie Wilms, Matthias Gastel, Stephan Kühn (Dresden), other MPs and the parliamentary group BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN - Printed matter 18/3137 - Extension of the operator contract with Toll Collect GmbH . tape 18 , no. 3478 , December 5, 2014, ISSN  0722-8333 , p. 4, 5 ( bundestag.de [PDF]).
  4. ^ Definition of the EFC Application for the EETS Based on Microwave Technologies