The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) has awarded a contract to IBM to design, build and deliver a new centralised road toll system across the country.

The new ‘AutoPASS Grindgut’ toll system is capable of processing more than 470 million vehicle passages annually, amounting to nearly NOK8bn ($1.32bn) in road user charges.

IBM will use its experience in analytics solutions to integrate roadside traffic data with new and modern user accounts and NPRA’s CRM system.

NPRA will reduce administration costs and improve customer service by migrating future customer interactions to the web and mobile; eliminating paper-based transactions.

IBM MobileFirst will support development of new smartphone and tablet apps that enable self service, delivering enhanced customer experience.

It will also allow NPRA to continue to introduce new mobile services and make further enhancements to the current system in the future.

"IBM has extensive experience with smarter traffic solutions."

Data collection from roadside systems across the country is based on automatic tag reading, or using automatic license plate recognition software delivered as part of the new central system.

Future services under the system may include providing customers with real-time analysis on traffic flow, usage, transport trends and travel patterns.

Additionally, improved levels of automation, based on IBM message-oriented middleware, will enable GPS-based tolling as well as other types of roadside services.

IBM Norway country manager Arne Norheim said: "IBM has extensive experience with smarter traffic solutions, having deployed them in Stockholm, Brisbane and London.

"We enable organisations like NPRA and others to take actionable historical and real-time traffic data, combined with advanced analytics and algorithms, to help model predicted conditions under both normal and incident conditions."

The new AutoPASS Grindgut system will be managed by IBM through Smarter Application Management from the company’s global delivery centers

The contract was awarded and signed to IBM in December 2013, and includes solution design, development and management for at least three years after delivery.

The new solution scheduled to begin operations in the first quarter of 2015.