Toll payment via tachograph for truck fleets: Continental and Axxès join forces to make OBUs superfluous

Continental and French toll specialist Axxès announced an interesting collaboration aimed at managing toll payment via tachograph, thus making the so-called OBUs (on-board units) superfluous. All this is made possible by exploiting tachograph data and the new plug and play device VDO Link.

More into details, Axxès and Continental will use data that is available in the next Continental version of the smart tachograph, the VDO DTCO 4.1, and transfer it to the Axxès cloud via the Continental Road Usage Service (CRUS) platform. To ensure cloud connectivity of its customers’ fleets Axxès uses Continental’s VDO Link, a smart connectivity device that is plugged in the tachograph front interface. The roles of the cooperation are clearly defined: Continental takes care of the necessary technology, and Axxès focusses on providing even better end-customer service for transportation companies.

Tachograph toll, a new, promising technology

The benefits of using tachograph data for collecting toll data are quite clear. A tachograph comes with a DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range Communication) modem, originally needed for tachograph inspection, but reusable for tolling. It also brings a satellite navigation receiver and a front interface. Also, tachographs have a cryptographic trust anchor, which allows tachograph and vehicle to be uniquely identified and authenticated.

The European Commission’s Mobility Package makes it necessary to retrofit trucks used by fleet owners for international transport with new second-version smart tachographs. The deadline for this is the year 2025. By adding the tachograph toll to the picture, the investment in retrofitting may open additional benefits for commercial vehicle fleet operators.

Statements from Continental and Axxès

“For Continental, the tachograph toll is not the finish line but rather a first step in the transition from OBU to OBE (distributed on-board equipment)”, commented Ismail Dagli, head of the business area Smart Mobility at Continental. “Thousands of commercial vehicle fleets will benefit from this. We are very satisfied to bring this to the market together with European electronic toll experts Axxès”.

“The introduction of the tachograph toll is a milestone for the European tolling sector, comparable only to the introduction of the all-digital truck toll in Germany in 2005. We are very proud to be the tachograph toll first-mover. This new solution is very easily accessible, and at the same time it is a lot more accurate, unambiguous and secure. It also opens new business fields for our customers and partners, because the tachograph toll is natively connected through our existing APIs to our new customer portal, which provides the full range of fleet management services”, added Frédéric Lepeintre, CEO of Axxès.