Who does what in a free-flow tolling project

A free-flow scheme is never delivered by a single company. Behind each gantry sit several organisations with distinct contracts and responsibilities. Knowing who holds which role is the first step when you look for a supplier, an expert or a partner, and FreeFlowToll now records that role on every documented link between a company and a project.

The roles

• Owner or tolling authority sets the rules and tariffs and usually procures the system: the vehicle authority RDW for the Dutch truck toll, the Road Infrastructure Agency in Bulgaria.
• Operator or concessionaire runs the road and collects the revenue: Sanef on the A13 and A14, APRR’s subsidiary ALIAE on the A79, ASFINAG in Austria, CCR RioSP on Brazil’s BR-101.
• Toll charger is the entity legally responsible for collecting the toll in a given system, such as Satellic in Belgium or Toll Collect in Germany.
• Prime contractor or systems integrator designs, builds and integrates the system: SkyToll in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Kapsch TrafficCom in Bulgaria.
• Roadside system supplier provides gantries, antennas, cameras and classification: Q-Free in Stockholm, EFKON in Norway.
• Back office and customer service handle accounts, trips, invoices and disputes: A-to-Be’s MoveBeyond on the A24 in the Netherlands, ViaPlus for Atlanta’s express lanes, Quarterhill on Utah’s I-15.
• Enforcement and recovery detect unpaid or non-equipped vehicles and pursue payment: Vitronic with SkyToll for the Dutch truck toll, EFKON in Belgium, Jenoptik’s monitoring systems in Germany, emovis for UK-registered vehicles at Dartford.
• Payment, tag issuers and EETS providers let users pay with one account across schemes: Telepass in the Netherlands, Sem Parar on the BR-101.

Why the distinction matters

Roles are increasingly split across separate contracts. At the Dartford Crossing, National Highways awarded the road user charging services to Conduent and UK enforcement to emovis in 2021, as separate packages worth up to £270 million together over 10.5 years. On the A40, ATMB contracted emovis specifically for its commercial back office.

For a buyer, this means comparing suppliers role by role rather than project by project. For a supplier, a reference counts only if the role is clear: having worked on a project is not the same as holding its back-office contract.

Organisations and people

Experts are listed differently. When a person is linked to a project, the link describes individual professional experience, the position they held, not a contract. Every project page now shows the two separately: “Who does what” for organisations, and people with experience on the project.

How roles are documented

Each role comes from a source: an operator press release, a tender result, an official report or a company reference. When it is not yet documented, the link is shown as “role being documented”. Companies can confirm or correct their roles through the correction form. The Who does what, where finder uses these links to show where a company is actually deployed.