The Smart Tachograph - Individual Accounting of Traffic Costs and its 
Implications 

Vlad Coroama 


Abstract ======== 

Today, several costs caused by road traffic may either be only roughly 
approximated, or cannot be clearly assigned to the drivers causing them, or 
both. They are typically distributed evenly among a large fraction of drivers, 
which is both unfair and economically inefficient. We have built a 
prototypical platform, called the "Smart Tachograph", that allows us to 
measure traffic-related costs on an individual basis, thus supporting a more 
fine-granular charging of the responsible parties. Sensors observe the manner 
and circumstances in which a vehicle is driven, while several accounting 
authorities can evaluate this information and charge motorists on a 
pay-per-use basis. The Smart Tachograph offers valuable insights for the 
deployment of future ubiquitous computing services in general: its 
implementation has obvious requirements in terms of security and privacy; its 
deployment model is realistic through the strong economic incentives it 
offers; and its usage directly affects core societal values such as fairness 
and trust. This paper summarizes our design considerations and discusses the 
feasibility and wider economic and societal implications of fielding such a 
system.