GNSS tolling

GNSS tolling — also called satellite tolling — charges drivers using global navigation satellite systems (GPS, Europe's Galileo and others) rather than physical toll plazas or camera gantries. A small on-board unit in each vehicle reads its own satellite position, works out which roads it has used, and reports the distance or zones travelled so a toll can be calculated.

Because it needs no roadside toll infrastructure, GNSS tolling scales cheaply across a whole country. Germany's truck toll (LKW-Maut), run by Toll Collect since 2005, was the first nationwide distance-based system built on satellite positioning; it bills lorries per kilometre by axle count, weight, emissions class and, since December 2023, a CO₂-class component — and since July 2018 it covers federal highways as well as motorways (about 52,000 km of network), applying to vehicles over 3.5 tonnes since July 2024. Singapore is moving the same way: its Electronic Road Pricing is switching to a GNSS-based ERP 2.0, with on-board units fitted since late 2023 and the physical gantries retired from 2027, opening the door to charging by distance rather than by fixed cordon.

The honest catch is privacy: a device that continuously knows where a vehicle is creates a detailed movement trail. Operators limit this by computing the charge inside the on-board unit and reporting only the toll owed, but the concern persists. Satellite signals can also drop out in tunnels and dense high-rise streets, and every vehicle needs hardware, which adds cost and enforcement complexity.