Harris County Toll ponders dropdead date for end of hardcased transponders
Posted Mon, 2007-06-11 19:36
After a year Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) now has about 1.1 million sticker tags in use but despite an effort to get the old hardcase transponders returned - a mailing offering the sticker tag in place of a returned hardcase transponder - 185k of the original Amtech hardcases are still out there.
"I'm thinking we'll have to draw a line in the sand soon to complete the changeover" says Fred Philipson, director of toll
operations. He is talking about proposing a deadline after which only the sticker tags will be accepted in order to force the completion of the changeover. A decision on this would need to be made by the Harris County Commissioners who run the tollroads.
Philipson says the new eGo Plus sticker tags and the older hardcased dual battery powered transponders work satisfactorily together and there is no urgency about phasing out the remaining box transponders. Both are supplied by TransCore.
HCTRA are doing the changeover for the following advantages, Philipson says:
- cost of the sticker tag is about half that of a hardcased transponder
- batteryless operation is cheaper, and performance of sticker tags is more consistent, battery transponders varying in performance with battery strength
- permanent windshield adhesion of sticker tags eliminates customer removing transponder and forgetting to replace it and enforces one tag/one vehicle
- handling and distribution cheaper since sticker tag fits in flat envelope
- customers like the lesser profile
- eGo Plus tags have three resident protocols (ATA, eGo, seGo), with future potential for interoperability and high bandwidth highspeed read-write
At each toll point the readers have separate 'cones' of operation for the sticker tags and for the old cased transponders. They both operate at 915MHz and both are being read on the ATA protocol, but reads are optimized with different cones of operation.
(Cones are the cone-like shape within which the radio signals from the antenna are tuned to operate with passing transponders.)
TOLLROADSnews 2007-06-11 (edited 2007-06-12 10:30)
"I'm thinking we'll have to draw a line in the sand soon to complete the changeover" says Fred Philipson, director of toll
operations. He is talking about proposing a deadline after which only the sticker tags will be accepted in order to force the completion of the changeover. A decision on this would need to be made by the Harris County Commissioners who run the tollroads.Philipson says the new eGo Plus sticker tags and the older hardcased dual battery powered transponders work satisfactorily together and there is no urgency about phasing out the remaining box transponders. Both are supplied by TransCore.HCTRA are doing the changeover for the following advantages, Philipson says:
- cost of the sticker tag is about half that of a hardcased transponder
- batteryless operation is cheaper, and performance of sticker tags is more consistent, battery transponders varying in performance with battery strength
- permanent windshield adhesion of sticker tags eliminates customer removing transponder and forgetting to replace it and enforces one tag/one vehicle
- handling and distribution cheaper since sticker tag fits in flat envelope
- customers like the lesser profile
- eGo Plus tags have three resident protocols (ATA, eGo, seGo), with future potential for interoperability and high bandwidth highspeed read-write
At each toll point the readers have separate 'cones' of operation for the sticker tags and for the old cased transponders. They both operate at 915MHz and both are being read on the ATA protocol, but reads are optimized with different cones of operation.
(Cones are the cone-like shape within which the radio signals from the antenna are tuned to operate with passing transponders.)
TOLLROADSnews 2007-06-11 (edited 2007-06-12 10:30)