Autopass

Autopass (stylized autoPASS) is an electronic toll collection system used in Norway. It allows collecting road tolls automatically from cars. It uses electronic radio transmitters and receivers operating at 5.8 GHz (MD5885) originally supplied by the Norwegian companies Q-Free and Fenrits. Since 2013 Kapsch and Norbit supplied the transponders. In 2016 the Norwegian Public Roads Administration revealed that they had chosen Norbit and Q-Free as suppliers of Autopass-transponders the next four years.

From 2022, contracts with vehicle owners are made with private competing companies. Autopass as a national company only handles the technology. A contract gives in general 20 % discount for light weight vehicles. Contracts and tags are compulsory for heavy vehicles. Foreign registered vehicles without a contract are handled by the EPASS24 company which will track the owner and bill them. Owners are advised to register their vehicle with EPASS24 and pay, in order to avoid extra cost. This includes foreign borrowed or rented vehicles. Customers having Norwegian rental vehicles can't make their own contract with any AutoPASS provider, but have to wait for the rental company to get the toll bill and charge the customer afterwards. For rental cars, tolls will include VAT, while tolls normally are VAT free, because legally only the owner is responsible for tolls, and charging the rental customer is legally seen as extra rental fee.

The toll rings are in general from 2022 using the "hour rule" meaning that only one passage per hour is charged for, if the owner has a contract. Especially in Oslo and Tromsø with multiple or odd shaped ring borders, driving without a contract can make multiple times the cost compared to having a contract. Electric vehicles have a large discount, usually half price as well as the general 20 % discount contract, but only if having a contract.

AutoPASS has in 2022 left the EasyGo partnership, so the AutoPASS tag are no longer valid in Denmark and Sweden, unless the contract provider has such a validity.

In 2019 more and more ferry crossings are also using Autopass as a payment option through the "AutoPass for ferry" concept. A few crossings are automatic, but most are still manual. If you have a tag you pay only for the vehicle at fully automatic crossings with a 10% discount. If you apply for an Autopass ferry account, which is prepaid, you get a 50%(40% corporate) discount for vehicle, and 17% for passengers at manual payment crossings. See https://www.autopassferje.no for more information.

Technology
The system involves the installation of a DSRC based radio transponder on the windscreen of a vehicle, and to sign an agreement with one of the toll collection companies in Norway. Tolls are charged at toll plazas and cars can drive past in over 100 km/h. The system is administrated by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. All public toll roads now use the electronic toll collection system.

Each Autopass unit contains a microcontroller which will process requests from the road side, and respond with the proper information to the road side.

There are 5 generations of cryptographic key pairs inside each Autopass unit, which are unique for each unit. The cryptographic keys are used for authenticating the unit when passing a toll plaza, thus making it difficult to make fraudulent copies of an Autopass unit. Unlike similar DSRC based tolling systems used in many countries, there is no access control in the Norwegian system, the unique ID within the unit being available for those who have the proper DSRC equipment.

There is an internal storage space for 100 log entries, which are normally updated each time a vehicle owner is charged when passing a toll plaza. This is a collection of receipt entries which includes the time, date, and the station identity of the toll plaza which did the tolling transaction.

Each Autopass unit features a move detect mechanism. When the unit is removed from the windscreen, an electrical switch will be activated, causing a flag to be set in a processor within the Autopass unit. This flag will be registered when doing a tolling transaction the next time the unit passes a toll plaza.

Obligatory tag for heavy vehicles
As of 1 January 2015 it is compulsory for all vehicles over 3.5 tonnes which are registered to an enterprise, state, county, or municipal administration, or which are otherwise primarily used for business purposes, to have an electronic toll payment tag when driving in Norway. The provision has its legal basis in regulations that were adopted on 10 October 2014. It applies to all above-mentioned Norwegian and foreign vehicles on the entire public road network. Failure to carry a toll payment tag will result in a fine of 8,000 NOK. Failure to pay within three weeks means that the penalty charge will be increased to 12,000 NOK. If you are stopped twice without a tag within a period of two years, you will be fined 16,000 NOK.