A tolling unit split across ECU, connectivity and cloud passed European certification

AUMOVIO said its VDO Link plug-and-play telematics device had been certified as a solution compliant with the European Electronic Toll Service by IMQ, which the company described as an accredited European notified body. The release was dated September 23 in Villingen-Schwenningen.

The claim the company makes for it is architectural. For the first time at European level, it said, the certification confirms that a distributed on-board equipment architecture can meet the requirements of the European Electronic Toll Service. Tolling functionality, in the release’s wording, is no longer concentrated in a standalone box but distributed across in-vehicle technology, connectivity services and cloud-based applications.

Four parts make up the certified solution: the digital tachograph, the VDO Link device itself, the VDO Fleet backend, and a cloud-based tolling proxy platform. The conformity assessment covered satellite positioning performance and interoperability over dedicated short-range communication — two of the technologies the European tolling directive permits, used to establish where a vehicle has been and to talk to roadside equipment.

Florin Jianu, who directs the tolling and telematics program in the company’s commercial and special vehicles segment, and Stefano Ferrari, certification sector manager at IMQ, were quoted. AUMOVIO said it now offers two certified tolling solutions under the scheme.

The European Electronic Toll Service is the arrangement intended to let a haulier use one on-board unit and one contract across national tolling schemes. Certification is what decides which equipment a service provider may deploy under it.