ARENA RUC Seminar 1 & 2: a summary of the seminars
Michael Forss, Inger Gustafsson, Lars Källström · 2008
Sweden is considering the introduction of a distance based road user charging system for heavy goods vehicles. A knowledge building process is ongoing within the ARENA project. The current Swedish situation was presented, describing the principles of the system that formerly have been proposed in a governmental investigation as well as describing the political decision process. A decision on distance based charging might be made by the Swedish parliament already during 2007. Then the concept that is being developed within ARENA was presented. The seminar is part of the concept development process, which should be seen as work in progress and not an official Swedish statement. The concept consists of four key elements: the thin client, the secure module, selectable position indicators and toll chargers key interface. After the concept was presented six invited speakers commented the concept approach. Questions and issues discussed among the speakers were for example; Will the Swedish scheme will be a tax or a fee? What is the purpose of a charge? Have you considered the business model? Is the thin client approach feasible and can the OBU be mandatory? Many of these questions can't be answered at this point and require further work. Regarding the tax or fee issue, the RUC scheme will probably be a tax taking the Swedish constitution into consideration. Divided in smaller groups the seminar participants discussed challenging topics such as trials, business models, enforcement, telematics and interoperability.