ISSY LES MOULINEAUX, France, March 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- emovis, the mobility solution provider of the world’s leading highway management firm, Abertis, is thrilled to announce the start of the Washington Road User Charge (WARUC) Pilot Project.
For 12 months, 2,000 volunteers will participate in the pilot in order to experience the replacement of the gas tax by a pay-per-mile travelled charge. Drivers will simulate paying for the miles they drive rather than the gallons of fuel they buy. The results of this year-long trial will help shape the state’s future transportation funding policy.
emovis is proud to take part in this initiative that seeks to explore new ways of providing sustainable transportation revenues to maintain critical road infrastructures in the US. This exciting project illustrates emovis’ long history of Road Usage Charge projects in the US, where the company is involved in Oregon’s RUC Pilot (wwww.myorego.org) as well as similar projects in Europe. emovis is committed to continuous innovation in conceiving smart road-based mobility solutions.
Cloud-based Mobility Solution
In addition to implementing a cloud-hosted back office solution, emovis provides On-Board Diagnostic (OBD-II) mileage recording devices and smartphone app technology, thanks to its partnership with Automatic®.
Automatic® is a San Francisco based leader in connecting every car on the road to the internet and empowering drivers with knowledge about themselves and their cars. Through this strategic partnership, emovis is leading the way in introducing a commercially available off-the-shelf consumer product and applying it to a road user charge solution.
The Challenge of Out of State Drivers
As with any state-based road charging program, out-of-state drivers pose a challenge in terms of compliance and revenue enforcement for state road authorities.
One of the key objectives of WARUC is precisely this—to test multi-jurisdictional charging by relying on the location-aware capabilities of the on-board mileage recording devices. The simulated charges applied to the participants’ trips differ depending on the location of each recorded mile travelled. All of this is achieved while adhering to strict privacy and data protection guidelines set out by the State.
About WARUC (www.waroadusagecharge.org)
Washington state is testing a Road Usage Charge (WARUC) where drivers simulate paying for miles driven rather than gallons of gas purchased. Various methods of mileage reporting will be tested during this trial.
This pilot is aimed at exploring new ways to fund the upkeep of roads as states are confronted with fast declining gas tax-based revenues.
In September 2017, following a competitive tender, emovis was selected to provide a turnkey RUC solution in support of the Washington State Transportation Commission’s RUC pilot project.
About emovis
emovis is focused on keeping roads moving through toll-based smart mobility solutions. With over 600 employees worldwide, the company operates some of the world’s largest free-flow tolling infrastructure in the UK, Ireland, U.S., and Canada.
In addition to being awarded the WA RUC project in 2017, emovis successfully launched UK’s second All Electronic Tolling near Liverpool (www.merseyflw.co.uk) last October. The company is 100% owned by Abertis (www.abertis.com), the international market leader in the management of toll roads, managing over 5,300 miles (8,600 kilometres) of high capacity and quality roads in 15 countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia.
www.emovis.com
Media Contact: Benoît ROSSI
communication@emovis.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a36cf3b5-7286-4328-9c6c-4da005563877