Diversification: Toll tags for other uses

It has always been the hope of ITS enthusiasts that multiple uses would be developed for the vehicle-to-roadside (VRC) communications embodied in the electronic toll transponder in the vehicle and its roadside reader. That’s the whole point of a ‘national architecture’ and DSRC standards.

Many other uses of e-tags have looked promising but not gone anywhere much to date. Weigh station bypass and data exchange at border crossings (US-Canada and US-Mexico) are two growth areas for e-tags. The equipment can do the job, the most difficult problem is to get the multiplicity of government agencies to agree on a common format for entering and managing the data flows, according to those working the field.

E-tags in use for tolling have also been used as traffic data probes in various places, notably in the Houston and New York areas. They are principally used to locate a given vehicle at different places on an arterial road and knowing the distance between each reader position it is easy for the system to calculate speed — a simple way to get data on levels of congestion and incidents along the roadway. More ambitiously such probes can be used to gather origin-destination data to get a picture of the diversity of trips for planning and modelling of road networks. A far better method potentially than trying to get people to fill in questionaire forms and mail them back. You just track them once you have readers all over a metro area.

So far most of these use of e-tags as data collectors have been the use of pre-existing toll systems (NY MTA B&T and Harris County) but in San Antonio for the first time whole VRC systems are being put in solely to gain traffic data. No tolling there, yet. 98 readers and some 78k tags are being distributed to become the eyes and ears of incident management and traveler information services. All this is being done with federal funding and it is as yet unclear whether state agencies would spend their own money on this stuff. But it is being tried and the results might stimulate more sales. The San Antonio system is being provided by Amtech.

Mark IV and Texas Instruments tags are being used at several parking lots, but apart from a couple of pilots announced with some fanfare there doesn’t seem to have been much by way of followup sales. Amtech is trying something new. Rand Brown told us Amtech’s discussions with parking operators convinced them that what was needed to make a real market of parking payment by e-tag was a full electronic financial clearinghouse service to back up the system. So as well as supplying and setting up the equipment Amtech is proposing to issue the tags, run the accounts, collect the money, and deposit it (minus a fee of course) in the parking station’s bank account... a full service they are marketing under the name PassKey Clearinghouse.

Amtech’s first big installation is in the parking buildings and lots at Dallas/Fort Worth airport where $1.2m of e-tag equipment is being installed. The tags will be the same read-only tags used for tolling on the Dallas North toll road and several other systems in the south. The more uses they find for the tags the better it is for tolling. It spreads the costs, and familiarity with the technology. (Contact Amtech 972 733 6056 or 800 923 4824)