Oslo, Norway, March 24, 2014 – The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) has selected IBM to design, build and deliver a new centralised road toll system across Norway.
Drawing upon IBM’s extensive traffic system management experience, big data,and analytics capabilities, and mobile expertise, the new toll system named ‘AutoPASS Grindgut’ will process more than 470 million vehicle passages per year, accounting for approximately eight billion Norwegian Krone (US$1.3 billion) in road user charges.
IBM will use its industry leading analytics solutions expertise to integrate roadside traffic data with new and modern user accounts and NPRA’s CRM system. In addition, based on the new system, NPRA will reduce administration costs and enhance customer service by phasing out paper-based transactions — migrating future customer interactions to the web and mobile.
IBM MobileFirst will support development of new self service smartphone and tablet apps, delivering improved customer experience. IBM MobileFirst enables NPRA to continue to introduce new mobile services and make future enhancements to the current system.
Data collection from the roadside installations across the country is based on automatic tag reading, or using automatic license plate recognition software delivered as part of the new central system.
Future services may include providing customers with real-time analysis on traffic flow, usage, transport trends and travel patterns. Additionally, enhanced levels of automation based on IBM message-oriented middleware will enable GPS-based tolling as well as other types of roadside services.
Director of NPRA Lars Erik Hauer, said: “We chose IBM because it had the best all round offer of all the bidders.”
“IBM has extensive experience with smarter traffic solutions, having deployed them in Stockholm, Brisbane and London. Also, IBM researchers have developed the Transportation Management Centre (TMC) of the Future with the City of Lyon, France,” said Arne Norheim, Country Manager, IBM Norway. “We enable organisations like NPRA and others to take actionable historical and real-time traffic data, combined with advanced analytics and algorithms, to help model predicted conditions under both normal and incident conditions.”
The AutoPASS Grindgut system will be managed by IBM through smarter application management from IBM’s global delivery centres. This enables scalability for future demand and the open architecture ensures cost effective development, enabling straightforward integration with third-party equipment vendors.
