STANDARDS: Feds call for comment

The Federal Highway Administration filing in the Federal Register January 6 1997 calls for comment on its proposal for a federal standard for dedicated short range communications (DSRC), especially for truck data exchange and electronic tolling. A first comment — the filing contains a clearly incorrect statement: "None of the electronic toll facilities are interoperable with regard to reciprocity in collecting tolls."

The following six systems are interoperable and are reciprocating thousands of tolls each day:

• Dulles Greenway/Dulles Toll Road VA

• 91-Express/TCA toll roads CA

• NY State Thruway/MTA B&T NY

Moreover arrangements are in place to implement interoperability of the electronic toll systems within broad regional areas such as:

• NY/NJ/DE/MD/VA/PA/IL/Ontario-Canada (mid-Atlantic) and the Canada-US border crossings

• TX/OK/KS/GA (South)

• California

• Florida

So it is not as bleak as the Federal Register says.

Now of course there are problems, the worst being that the emerging heavy truck data exchange system namely the slotted Aloha TDMA active system (ASTM draft 6) marketed principally by Hughes is not yet interoperable with the passive backscatter e-toll systems of Amtech in the south or with the MFS/Texas Instruments in California. MFS/TI, Hughes and Caltrans are working together to try and fix that for the west coast, and Amtech can almost certainly do the same if it sees the need for the south. Hughes equipment can already work with the Mark IV systems that are dominant in the mid-Atlantic and indeed both will work side by side in Ontario shortly.

Other problems of interoperability occur between New England where Maine (AT/Comm) and Massachussetts (Amtech) have different e-toll systems from the mid-Atlantic (Mark IV) and it is difficult to see what can be done about that. Cars driving between the south, the mid-Atlantic and the west will lack interoperability.

And the lack of international standards tends to segment markets for this equipment the way NTSC, PAL etc have segmented TV. Japan is plumping for a Hitachi-beef up of the Hughes system (higher data rate and full duplex TDMA) which it found superior in exhaustive tests to others. The Europeans are embracing a limited shorter-ranging communciations standard CEN-278 designed around their backscatter systems and the US manufacturers Amtech and TI favor movement by the US toward that. Europe and Japan both are focussed on building to a far shorter wavelength 5.8GHz than the US 0.9GHz, so it is difficult to see further standardization being achieved, at least until systems going in now have gotten several years of use. Manufacturers, tollsters and motorists all have an interest in getting value from their existing investments in equipment. All have been bought and deployed by executives who have looked at the various alternatives and in some cases done extensive testing and believe their system is the most suitable. Thousands of the e-tags are being delivered every day to customers. The Feds have missed the boat. Too late by several years.

Well it's an imperfect untidy world. We live with different electricity voltages, drive different sides of the road in different countries, wrestle with different currencies and different languages. One day perhaps not too far off we'll have cars and trucks coming off the production lines with communications capabilities built into them so the velcro-attached transponder on the windshield won't be needed. Maybe GM, Mercedes, Ford, Toyota, Fiat, Honda, VW etc can work something out for the next generation of mobile communications and tolling gear to roll out in say 2002? (JPO/ITS FHwA 202 366 9536)