Method and process to ensure that a vehicular travel path recording that includes positional errors can be used to determine a reliable and repeatable road user charge

A system for tracking the position of an object that is moving or stationary, comprising:

• a receiver for receiving positioning data with respect to the object's position in timed intervals;
• and
• a processor for:
• calculating a position estimate and associated error bound for each timed interval based upon the received positioning data;
• fitting each calculated position estimate and associated error bound to a grid of cells;
• calculating a maximum-likelihood path of travel based upon the position estimates and associated error bounds and designating a cell as a path element if the maximum-likelihood path of travel crosses that cell;
• and
• thinning the path, except at start and end points, by removing path elements such that each 2×2 group of cells along the path that initially has three or four path elements has at least two but no more than three path elements, whilst ensuring that each path element remains 8-connected to at least two path elements to produce a recorded travel path with no breaks.