Decarbonization of Toll Plazas: Impact Assessment of Toll Collection System Management

Transport climate change impacts have become a worldwide concern. The use of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) could contribute to a more effective use of resources in toll road networks. Management of toll plazas is central to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as it is there that bottlenecks and congestion occur. This study focuses on management strategies aimed at reducing climate change impacts of toll plazas by managing toll collection systems. These strategies are based on the use of different collection system technologies – Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) and Open Road Tolling (ORT) – and on queue management. The carbon footprint of various toll plazas is determined by a proposed integrated methodology which estimates the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the different operational stages at toll plazas (deceleration, service time, acceleration, and queuing) for the different toll collection systems. To validate the methodology, two main-line toll plazas of a Spanish toll highway were evaluated. The findings reveal that the application of new technologies to toll collection systems is an effective management strategy from an environmental point of view. The case studies revealed that ORT systems lead to savings of up to 70% of CO2 emissions at toll plazas, while ETC systems save 20% comparing to the manual ones. Furthermore, queue management can offer a 16% emissions savings when queue time is reduced by 116 seconds. The integrated methodology provides an efficient environmental management tool for toll plazas. The use of new technologies is the future of the decarbonization of toll plazas.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC20 Transportation and Air Quality.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Hernandez, Sara
  • Monzon, Andres
  • Sobrino, Natalia
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automated toll collection; Carbon dioxide; Case studies; Greenhouse gases; Pollutants; Queuing; Toll collection; Toll plazas; Tolls
• Uncontrolled Terms: Open road tolling
• Geographic Terms: Spain
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01474135
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-2687
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 28 2013 11:40AM