Mark IV shipping newly styled E-ZPass transponder to SC - plus a meandering interview

Mark IV IVHS are shipping a newly styled E-ZPass transponder to South Carolina under that state's brand Palmetto Pass. It will be used on Hilton Head Island SC and at the Greenville Southern Connector SC. The new transponder is about 25 percent less in volume than the existing ones (79cc vs 105cc) and only two-thirds the footprint on the windshield (4.4cm2 vs 6.8cm2).

It is about the same 3.5 inch in width but only 2in deep versus 3in of the old one, although the new one is thicker at a ridge along the bottom face.

Existing transponder: 76mm x 89mm x 19mm (3 x 3.5 x 0.7 inches), volume 105cc (6.4in3)

New transponder: 48mm x 93mm x 23mm (1.9 x 3.7 x 0.9 inches), volume 79cc (4.8in3)

A major aim of the redesign is making the transponder more attractive.

Martin Capper president of Mark IV IVHS: "There is a proportion of motorists who find the (existing) transponders unattractive. (These people) don't like the look of them. The new design is an effort to improve the esthetics providing it with something of a sculpted shape."

With the transponder more appealing in appearance the uptake may be higher, he says.

"It should help the (toll) agencies get a higher penetration rate," Capper told us in a conference call this week.

The transponder rework also conforms to new standards of recyclability by substituting benign for hazardous materials. The change also moves the indicator lights to the side.

The new transponder can be deployed by South Carolina quickly because they aren't part of the Inter Agency Group. The IAG has a long procurement process and it isn't being considered there yet.

Performance and quality control

Mark IV's new chief technical officer Richard Turnock said the new tag is not much different in performance, just some small changes: "You have to be very careful when you improve performance by one metric you aren't losing it in another. Our different generations of transponders have to work all the readers."

The very first E-ZPass reader to go live - in the Albany Schenectady area on the New York State Thruway - installed in 1994 is still in use, and most of the first generation of readers, so improvements have to maintain a similar performance.

At the vehicle end the various generations of transponders have to all operate smoothly with the different versions of readers.

Turnock says that quality control is a major focus of his work. Capper says he was hired partly because of his strength in quality control. Prior to Mark IV Turnock did aircraft safety systems at Honeywell, where because of life and death consequences there's huge emphasis on making gear that is reliable and consistent in performance.

At Mark IV he says they work on quality control both to sustain a reputation for reliability and also to help the bottom line. With a 5 year warranty on their products they lose money when equipment malfunctions so they have an incentive to send only good product out the loading dock.

Some testing occurs on the production line - 100% of product undergoes those tests. Then a sample of product is regularly taken for outdoor testing.

The 5.9 gig

Capper and Turnock say they remain optimistic that 5.9GHz transponders are the next big thing for tolling and for other vehicle-to-roadside communications. As part of their involvement in the joint development effort for 5.9GHz - which is using the OmniAir brand -  they have just delivered a vehicle roof antenna integrated for both 5.9GHz and GPS. It plugs into an onboard unit that will integrate locational data from GPS with the terrestrial communications of the higher frequency.

Mark IV has its own 5.9GHz brand Otto.

Like other 5.9GHz enthusiasts they can't name any single application that might drive initial deployment as tolling did for 0.9GHz, or any combination likely to band together to persuade car companies to install it in cars. Their own models are being engineered and packaged as aftermarket products.

The end of 2008 will be a critical decision time, they say, when the consortium and the car companies and government get together to evaluate the results of trials of all the components of the splendid new mobile communications system.

As they say a modern standard for an advanced short/medium range mobile communications now exists, and there's good bandwidth available in the US. A great product looking for a market?

What of looking further afield with the 5.9 gig technology, to selling it as up upgrade to Europe's now steam-age CEN-278 5.8GHz gear (our term).

Turnock says that in designing 5.9GHz they always make provision for adapting it to the European standard which is also embraced by South America and Australia, but their primary focus has to be on North America. And in North America they have supplied the monster system E-ZPass with about 3,000 readers and 16m+ transponders in use, the TDMA-based Pre-Pass, and Canada's 407ETR with roughly another million boxes each.

E-ZPass Inter Agency Group are preparing to rebid their supplier of course after 13 years with Mark IV as the exclusive. Capper and his team are waiting eagerly to see what the IAG RFP will be.

Meanwhile they won't talk specifics about what they might present. Their whole business depends heavily on how they handle their relationship with the 23 toll agencies in twelve states that form the E-ZPass group.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-05-19