On Tuesday several newspapers reported that Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, had signed up to spend £12 million pounds on ‘a spy in the sky.’ The deal, supported by the London Development Agency, will help Inmarsat fund a satellite launch. Apparently the satellite is just to be used for communications. However it has also been pointed out that it could be used to monitor congestion charging by satellite if cars were fitted with a transponder.

As this deal is of ‘questionable’ benefit to motorists and Londoners, it does beg the question - why on earth is the mayor of London forking out £12 million of tax payer’s money for what some people view as a spy satellite? The answer lies in the EU itself and has implications for all UK road users.

What does the EU have to do with Road Pricing and Satellite Tracking?
In the European Parliament’s transport policy white paper the EC was asked to investigate and promote new technology for transport infrastructure and road pricing. Its findings were: “The Commission argues that satellite positioning in conjunction with mobile communications is the only solution that allows easy application of 'zone tolls'.

Taking this further the EU brought out a directive called 2004/52/EC ‘on the Inter-Operatability of Electronic Toll Systems in the community’. This directive paves the way for the following to happen:
1/ As of the 1st of January this year it came in to force that any new road pricing or electric toll system has to be capable of using, “satellite positioning technology…using the GSM-GPRS standard”.
2/ The EU will set up a Europe-wide electronic toll service which should be interoperable between EU countries. In order to do this the UK will have to install road pricing technology to bring to make us compliant with a wider EU electronic toll service.
3/ This planned Europe-wide electronic toll service aims to have one single contract between road users and a road tolling or pricing service. The object is ”one contract per customer, one box per vehicle.”
4/ Finally the EU itself will have the right to impose road pricing on member states! As the following EU directive clearly illustrates: “Barriers to the operation of the internal market should be removed, while still allowing …the community to implement a variety of road-charging policies for all types of vehicles at local, national or international level.”

How does this relate to Kens ‘Spy the Sky’? To answer this we first have to look at the Galileo programme. Have you heard of it? The EU is currently working on a European version of the American GPS. This project, called the Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), will be made up of 30 satellites that will deliver real-time geographical positioning. It is managed by a consortium of public sector bodies and businesses collectively called the Galileo Operating Company. The system will have the ability to pinpoint objects to within 1 meter. It should be operational by 2010. The EU plans to use the Galileo system to implement the Europe-wide electronic toll service via satellite tracking.

London has already tested the use of Galileo for UK road pricing. The Transport for London’s website contains a document entitled ‘Transport for London’s Simulation of Galileo Performance in Road User Charging, with the European Space Agency’. The conclusion of this study described its finding as ‘very promising’. It also went on to conclude that Transport for London was “well placed to assess…. as and when satellite based road pricing strategies are investigated in the UK.”

So to go back to the beginning - £12 million has been ear-marked for a business called Inmarsat to launch a satellite that could be used to monitor congestion charging. Who are Inmarsat? They are an international telecommunications company that run satelite phones. They are also the overall leadership of the Galileo Operating Company. Smoke and mirrors anyone?

So what can we as road users look forward to in the future? A UK and European road network integrated with road pricing technology that uses satellite tracking. The Galileo Operating Company will have the ability to know where your vehicle is to within one meter… and who else will they share this information with? Your road charges may come from Brussells and not just Westminster. It doesn’t stop there either as there are other possible applications for the Galileo system. One that I have read about is the potential for vehicle speed-limiting technology.

We can howvever register our views about this in a couple of ways. We are now in a public consultation period about the he development of satellite navigation applications. Basically the EU want to know the opinions of industry, public authorities, consumer groups or consumers themselves so that they can create solid goals and appropriate public sector action to work towards with regard to GNSS Satellite tracking. The link to this form is:  http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/green-paper/index_en.htm We have a brief window of opportunity here as the consultation period ends next week on the 6th of April!

There is also an e-petition which asks the prime minister to, “Provide the public with honest information regarding how the implementation of the EU Directive 2004/52/EC, the directive that will pave the way for a Europe-wide electronic road toll service, will affect all of us in the UK”. The response made by Tony Blair to the last petition on Road Pricing simply side-stepped the issue. So it's time to ask a more pointed question now. If you feel strongly about this subject then please register your views by signing this petition. The link for this is:  http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-RoadPricing/

For further Info and references: www.lisaannedavy.com/writing