The Distancerelated Heavy Vehicle Fee HVF in Switzerland

1
The Distance-related Heavy Vehicle Fee (HVF) in
Switzerland
March 5 2004
Matthias H. Rapp
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Heavy Vehicles Tolling in Europe
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Increasing HGV traffic volumes lead to chronic
congestion on the North-South routes
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Swiss HVF is embedded in national transportation
policy

• Internalisation of external costs of freight
  transport
• Financing the new railway tunnels
• Keep rail goods transport competitive
• Limit the expected traffic increasewhen the
  national truck weight limit rises from 28t to 40t

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Fee Parameters
All trucks gt 3.5 t subject to fee Driving more
means paying more Empty vehicle costs same as
loaded vehicle Trailer is taken into account
separately Replaces the previous flat Heavy
Vehicle Fee
Standard 34t truck 0.47 / km
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Swiss HVF System Size
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HVF Recording Tools
Domestic vehicles
Foreignvehicles
Mandatory equipped with
Voluntarily equipped with
On Board Unit
On Board Unit
In approved exceptional cases
In principle using
TAG
ID-Card Self-service Machine
Log-Book Tag
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Swiss HVF On-board Unit
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55 000 Vehicles equipped with Swiss OBU
Outside Compliance Indicator Lights
Display and covered Keyboard
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Border Crossings Recorded with DSRC
Dedicated Short Range Communication

• 5.8 GHz DSRC technologyaccording to CEN
  Standards
• Swiss vehicles Switch from km counting on to
  km counting off
• Foreign vehiclesRead out of accumulated logfile
  data

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Billing Procedure

• Monthly read-out of the trip data
• Declare (send) the data to the billing centre
• The billing centre invoices the owner

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Procedure for Foreign Vehicles without OBU
FIRST ENTRY INTO SWITZERLAND - registration of
vehicle data - ID-Card is issued
ON ENTRY Self-service machine - identification
with ID-Card - declaration of kilometre reading
and trailer status - choice of payment means -
receipt with declaration
ON EXIT (without leaving vehicle) - declaration
of kilometre reading - signature - random check
of declaration
24798 J. Doe
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HVF Enforcement Gantry
Vehicle classification
DSRC Communication
Automatic Number Plate reading
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ETC System Costs

• On Board Unit
• Procurement cost 900 / unit(OBU issued at no
  cost to HGV owners)
• Installation approx. 250 / unit
• Investments of Swiss Government
• Road side equipment and background system 120 M
  
• Cost of OBUs 70 M
• Operating costs per year 18 M
• Personnel requirements 120 staff
• Total collection costs 5 - 7 of revenue

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Impacts of Swiss HVF

• Fleet Adaptation
• Replacement of high-emission trucks
• More specialised vehicles (e.g. lighter trucks
  for light goods)
• More efficient haulage industry
• Mergers / co-operation in transport industry
• Freight and Fleet Management
• HGV traffic growth Trend reversed
• Little change in routes no detour traffic
• Some indication for modal shift (combined
  transport)
• No effect on consumer prices
• HVF used to justify transport price increase
• Little influence on consumer prices

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Trend of HGV Traffic Growth is reversed
Growth rate of heavy vehicles traffic
125
120
with HVF
115
without HVF
changes in (19997 100)
115
105
100
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Other roads
Motorways
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Swiss HVF is a success story

• A completely new type of fee collection system
• Major progress towards fair and efficient road
  charging
• Low investment and operational costs
• HVF has been working from the very beginning