RECALL Illinois tollway recalls 30,000 Mark IV e-tags

RECALL

Illinois tollway recalls

30,000 Mark IV e-tags

Early July the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (ISHTA) will be mailing out some 30,000 2nd generation Mark IV transponders (tags) to users of the first generation Mark IV “I-Pass” tags and asking them to return the old ones. Almost as many in inventory are also being sent back. At nearly 60k it is the largest recall ever of toll transponders.

Late May in the first burst of Chicago-area summer many of the first generation Mark IV I-Pass toll tags developed a fluctuating low voltage problem which triggered a protective powerdown cutting off the liquid crystal display and buzzer in the tags.

ISTHA says the tags being recalled maintain sufficient power to conduct the vehicle-to-roadside communications allowing the toll transaction to be conducted properly, but the lack of normal aural and visual indications to the motorist in very hot weather is a nevertheless an unacceptable product defect.

Contractor and manufacturer apparently agree, so despite the seriousness of the situation and the scale of the recall there have been amicable relations between manufacturer, integrator and client. An ISTHA official told us they are pleased that the suppliers have “stepped up to the plate very willingly and said they will to fix the problem, and take back all potentially defective tags.”

TransCore is the prime contractor and is conducting the recall and replacement at no cost to the toll authority. Mark IV in turn as supplier has accepted responsibility for taking back the first generation of tags, and reworking them to meet specifications.

Some early reports called the affair a battery problem, but this seems to be based on misunderstanding. The problem lies in power conservation procedures which are triggered prematurely by the circuitry in the first major run, chopping off the power to the LCD and the beeper.

The batteries are 2100 milliamp-hour lithium units manufactured by Tadiran at a factory in Rehoboth Israel. Tadiran supplies similar style but smaller capacity batteries for regular IAG tags from Mark IV as well as to the other major manufactuers of electronic toll tags including Amtech, Sirit (formerly Texas Instruments), and Combitech. Most are 900 milliamp-hour units and are expected to last 7 to 10 years in use.

ISTHA tags from Mark IV use identical radio procedures for actual tolling to the tags Mark IV supplies to the Inter Agency Group on the east coast and are designed to be interoperable with them. But they are a first (and maybe, for battery power, a last?) to incorporate a display and buzzer so they have far greater power supply needs. Motorists using IAG facilities are told if their account balance is low and needs replenishment by a small message sign in the toll lane near the “Go” light and the IAG tag uses low power beep sequences. As a result of relatively small power needs the IAG style tags are sealed and the batteries inside are expected to last the life of the tag. Most other toll tags are similar, though active Japanese tags operating at 5.8Ghz are hardwired to the car’s electrical circuit.

By contrast ISTHA tags are expected to exhaust the larger 2100 milliamp-hr lithium battery in about two years of regular use and come with a slide-out lid on the battery compartment so the battery can be replaced by the customer.

ISTHA officials told us that the problems really caught their attention late May the first time large numbers of cars equipped with Mark IV tags were baked by a summerish sun. Customers started complaining about the lack of a display and beep/buzz. The display on the Chicago area tags first shows the amount of the toll transaction then shows the account balance each time the vehicle passes a tolling point. In addition there is a happy OK beep or a fart-like no-good buzz. Also the I-Pass tags have a memory that allows the motorist to scroll back through as many as 80 past toll transactions.

Within days of being notified of complaints Mark IV said the problem involved powerdown settings in the first batch of transponders sent to ISTHA.

“The magic number was 59,700. Serial numbers below that needed the fix, those above it were OK,” said a toll authority official. At first the Authority just replaced the tags of customers who reported the problem, but by mid-June it had decided with TransCore and Mark IV to do a complete recall.

ISTHA’s spokesman Donald O’Toole says they have been “very cautious” in their conversion to electronic tolling. They grant no discount for use of an e-tag and require a $38 deposit plus a $40 starting balance in the account. Last year with only about 36k tags from AT/Comm of Boston in use and fewer than half the system’s toll lanes equipped with readers, ISTHA accepted a bid from TransCore for completing the system by scrapping AT/Comm readers and transponders and replacing them with Mark IV readers and with tags with the same features (TRnl#20 Oct 97 p15). An official told us the first AT/Comm tags had an alkaline battery which was destroyed by the heat, but they later went to the same lithium battery that Mark IV is currently using.

Denso

Mark IV at first had an arrangement with Denso in which the Japanese firm would subcontract to supply transponders to the ISTHA specifications. It was widely speculated that Denso was buying its way into the North American market with a very low price for the special requirements of the Chicago area tollster. But the Denso-Mark IV deal was never consummated. Officials on neither side will explain what happened. In any case Mark IV decided to manufacture the Chicago supertag itself — and its misstep is proving quite costly.

One view is that any tag with a display should be hardwired to the 12V vehicle electrical system. With the display operating at the same time as the buzzer and the transponder’s active radio transceiver there can be three loads on the battery simultaneously, and a regular drain on the battery. If the motorist needs to activate the display, this line of reasoning goes, power consumption will be less. Also if button controlled, it is less likely to be activated at the toll plaza, and less likely to provide a simultaneous load.

Officials concerned say no problems have occurred with the second generation I-Pass tags, so unless something unexpected crops up ISTHA and its suppliers should have put these problems behind them. Mark IV picked up potential problems with the first generation some time ago, and adjusted the troublesome power conservation controls. ISTHA officials and the manufacturer express complete confidence in the second run of tags and the manufacturer has turned out sufficient numbers to allow all the first run to be taken back and replaced in a matter of weeks.

An ISTHA official told us he was “thankful we caught the problem with 50,000 tags out there rather than 500,000.”

Last October we were told ISTHA hoped to have 300k tags in use by end-98 and 600k by end-99, but the authority seems at this point to be behind that ambitious schedule. On the other hand the installation of readers and other equipment at toll plazas is going well. Almost all mainline plazas are now done and all ramp plazas will be complete by year’s end, ISTHA says.

Changes

Along with the recall ISTHA announced it would install lane-side blue light signals to provide exterior toll confirmation. These have been installed at mainline plaza ET lanes but will now be installed as well at all the ramp plazas in the system. It is also considering purchase of transponders without the LCD display, and would supply these at lower cost. ISTHA pays $52/each for the I-Pass tags made to its specs and could get the basic IAG tags for below $30.

Background

ISTHA does the largest number of toll transactions daily of any toll system in the US — 1.2 million. It operates a point tolling system with about 350 toll lanes at 70 plazas, most of them 4-toll lane ramp plazas and equipped with coin machines. Many trips involve multiple small toll payments. The authority regularly gets lambasted for the length of queues at its plazas and there is strident talk from time to time in Chicago of abolishing a not-very-popular toll agency. But fiscal facts, notably the sheer size of the system’s debt and the cost in higher state taxes of abolishing tolls, keep it in business. With revenue of about $300m it is the largest grossing toll system in the US outside the NY/NJ/PA area (which has much higher toll rates). ISTHA operates 4 major toll roads totalling 438km (267mi) serving the western part of the 8m pop Chicago metro area including the busy O’Hare airport and also rural northern Illinois, and it has major expansion plans, some of which face opposition. (Contact Don O’Toole ISTHA 630 241 6800x2380)