The following summarises some of the key developments and potential new systems re road charging around the Globe. Insurance Pay as you Drive is following in the same line with lots of pilots and activities........

Australia

Australia has a number of ETC systems and for ten years has had an active 'Intelligent Access Project' which has developed GPS units for lorries with the potential of charging for road use.

Czech Republic

A national scheme for charging lorries was introduced in 2007. It is currently DSRC-based and applies only on motorways, but there are plans for extending the system to other roads and switching to GPS units. Currently about 300,000 on-board units are in use.

Dubai and the Middle East

Dubai introduced the tag-based 'Salik' road pricing system in 2007, with some 850,000 vehicles equipped. Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi have conducted trials with GPS units with a view to introducing more sophisticated road charging systems in the future.

France

France has announced plans for the introduction of GPS-based charging for lorries on roads which are currently non-tolled. An initial stage will be operational in the Alsace region in 2010, with national coverage during 2011. Several hundred thousand units will be required.

Germany

The LKW Maut scheme for charging all lorries over 12 tonnes for using any part of the autobahn network has been in successful operation since 2005. About 500,000 GPS-based units are in use, and a contract for replacement second-generation units has recently been let.

Hong Kong

In the 1980s Hong Kong was the first territory to demonstrate the viability of urban electronic charging, and in the 1990s a trial system using GPS was successfully demonstrated - this was particularly challenging given the 'urban canyon' nature of the central business district. Although road pricing has not been introduced, it is regularly reviewed as a policy option and could see up to a million units being required in the medium term.

Hungary

Hungary has a paper-based 'vignette' system for charging lorries for using the motorway network and has announced plans to move to an electronic system, which would almost certainly be GPS-based.

The Netherlands

The Dutch Government is implementing plans for charging for the use of all roads: lorries will be charged from 2011 and all vehicles from 2016. The scheme will be GPS-based, requiring around 10 million units by the time charging starts for cars.

New Zealand

New Zealand has a distance charge for diesel vehicles which uses mechanical 'hub-odometers'. Several studies have looked at replacing this system with a GPS-based one, and Auckland is seriously considering an urban charging system.

Singapore

The first ever road pricing scheme in the world was introduced in Singapore in 1973, with paper licences required for entry to the Central Business District. In 1998 the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) scheme was introduced. Nearly all the one million vehicles have on-board units, and there are substantial plans to migrate the current system to one based on GPS.

Slovakia

Slovakia is currently negotiating with the winning consortium which bid this year to supply a GPS-based lorry charging scheme to be operational during 2009. About 100,000 units will be supplied. Slovenia Slovenia is implementing a scheme for GPS-based charging for lorries, currently planned to be operational during 2009. Around 50,000 units will be supplied, and there are plans eventually to extend the scheme to private cars.

Sweden

Sweden has a research project, 'Arena', which is aimed at the eventual implementation of GPS-based lorry charging. Sweden initiated the 'Stockholm Group' of European governments investigating GPS-based charging.

Switzerland

The Swiss introduced national charging for lorries in 2001. Charges are per kilometre and apply on all roads. The on-board units include GPS for checking consistency. Around 50,000 units are in use.

United Kingdom

National Road Pricing has been on the political agenda for several years, including plans for national lorry charging which were postponed in 2005, but following the Downing St petition the Government has said that it has no plans to implement it at the moment. However, it is implementing trial schemes of GPS-based technology and is encouraging local authorities to introduce charging schemes. The London congestion charge scheme was introduced in 2003 and has been highly successful. Whilst the current scheme has no on-board equipment (drivers buy a daily licence and number plates are checked automatically), Transport for London has conducted a major research programme into GPS-based charging and the scheme, affecting several million vehicles, could be upgraded in the medium term to be GPS-based.

United States

In the last year the support by the Federal Highway Administration for potential city congestion charging schemes has raise the prospect of real schemes in the USA. Trials of GPS-based charging systems have taken place in Seattle and in Oregon.