407

• first multi-interchange urban motorway to be built without toll plazas requiring motorists to stop to pay

• first toll road to support short-hop trips with interchanges close spaced (av 2.5km)

• first urban mwy to avoid weaving problems on mainline by eschewing adjacent cloverleaf loops and doing ‘basketweave’ overpasses of close on & off-ramps

• first catering to occasional users without requiring them to stop at a toll plaza to pay cash, drop coins, or swipe a credit card. By using highway speed automatic license plate recognition for occasional users it is the world’s first occasional-user friendly, non-stop toll road.

• first to use a passive transponder tracking system at the tolling points, allowing greater certainty about distinguishing one vehicle from others to assure more

accurate electronic tolling at high speed in open road conditions

• first to use for tolling the long range high data rate vehicle-to-roadside active communications of “slotted Aloha” time division multiple access (TDMA) ±— a protocol that is already becoming a North American standard (ASTMv6) for heavy truck clearance at weigh & inspection stations and border crossings

• first to implement interoperability by catering to two different active toll transponder systems (1) the ASTMv6 of Hughes and (2) the US Interagency Group (IAG) transponders from Mark IV in use in neighboring New York state and on other US facilities

• first to issue a fusion tag usable on two toll systems

• first use of laser profiling equipment (SEO) for routine vehicle classification at all entries and exists

• first to develop an intergrated billing and enforcement system using digital cameras and optical character recognition

• first toll road to bill at different time-of-day cents/km rates

• first toll road to put all sensors on gantries above the roadway depriving workcrews of any excuse to dig trenches or holes in the pavement

• first to deploy an Asynchronous Transfer Mode communications network catering to both imagery and data

• first road declared “unsafe” by police and media before it opens

Notes: 91-Express in California was the first ‘automatic’ or completely non-stop toll road to open (Dec 95) since it has no toll plaza but it is ‘In’ one end, ‘Out’ the other, making 407 the first multi-interchange automatic toll road; the French toll road operator SANEF was the first (1994) to apply congestion or value pricing on the A1 with higher toll rates Sunday pm; 91-Express was the first toll road to introduce several time-of-day toll rates during the work week. 407 is the second.