Florida's Turnpike to buy multi-protocol readers and "yea or nay" on sticker tags by late Nov - E Suarez

Florida Turnpike Enterprise will be making a "yea or nay" decision on adoption of sticker tags in about four weeks time, according to Evelio Suarez, their director of toll operations. He told us that there is just one final batch of tests to be run. Turnpike staff are in Albuquerque NM to see tests by TransCore of SunPass type transponders working in tandem with SeGo sticker tags in a multilane open road environment.

"We're in the final stages of our testing and evaluation and in about a month's time we should have enough information to make a yea or nay decision," Suarez told us today.

The testing of two protocols simultaneously in an open road or highway speed environment - with vehicles not necessarily in a defined lane - is crucial. Suarez says that a substantial proportion of the state's toll system is planned to be open road tolling by 2012.

Multi-protocol reader chosen

A firm decision has been made, Suarez told us, to deploy a multi-protocol reader throughout the SunPass system as part of the complete rebuild of the Florida SunPass brand electonic toll system. Work on that rebuild is now in detailed design.

The reader selected, he said, is the Encompass 6 (E6) from TransCore.

"We have made a strategic decision to use the E6," Suarez said. "That will give us great flexibility, and the ability to transition smoothly to new technologies."

He said that with E6 readers the switch to 5.9GHz VII type transponders would be quite smooth, because they are designed to do this with an add-on. 5.9GHz VII is the next generation super-transponder being pushed as an open standard nationally interoperable vehicle to roadside and vehicle-to-behicle communications device. It would need to be built into cars in the factory and hardwired, rather than be battery dependent. 5.9GHz faces the problem that it is far more capable than needed for tolling and expensive, so its adoption is not being pushed by the toll industry.

E6 readers working in the present 900+ MHz frequency range can handle the following protocols:

- Title 21 similar to California, Colorado and the present SunPass hardcase transponders in the IT2200 series plus a Title 21 variant used in Oklahoma and Kansas

- Ego Plus sticker tag (protocol SeGo) being evaluated as next generation transponder by Florida and in use in Texas and Washington state

- eGo first generation sticker tags as in Georgia and Puerto Rico

- ATA hardcased tags as used in Texas and Oklahoma

- IAG transponders as used in the E-ZPass Inter Agency Group

- CVISN truck credntialling ASTMv6 protocol (the illfated 1990s candidate of the FHWA for a national standard protocol that ended up only being used on US trucks for credentialling and weigh station bypass and for tolling on Minneapolis I-694, in Canada and Israel)

E6 readers are dual mode meaning they can handle any two protocols simultaneously. The two can be chosen from any of the five capable of being handled.

So in the IAG area they could handle existing Mark IV IAG transponders and sticker tags.

In Florida E6 readers could be used to read the existing IT2200 hardcased transponders plus SeGo sticker tags. That is their most likely immediate use.

Or - this is our speculation not Suarez - they could be used to handle E-ZPass IAG tags along with the existing SunPass IT2200 units - if E-ZPass IAG were prepared to amend their rules and make the necessary business arrangements with SunPass.

Or, and this seems most likely, the E6 readers could be used for several years with the existing hardcased SunPass units and SeGo sticker tags in a transition to a sticker tag system in Florida. After the present hardcased SunPass transponders with the Title 21 protocol were phased out completely - in say 2011 or 2012 - the second channel in the E6 readers could be switched over from Title 21 protocol to E-ZPass IAG. Or they could have 5.9GHz readers added and work alongside those.

The Transcore E6 reader will be installed in some 770 SunPass toll lanes between mid 2008 and 2012 under a $230m contract with Raytheon as prime contractor, Suarez says.

E-ZPass IAG can't get its act together

It had been expected that this would be the year for the biggest toll system rework contract yet - the Inter Agency Group (IAG) request for proposals for new electronic toll technology for E-ZPass. However that cumbersome conglomerate which controls around 3,000 toll lanes has been unable in the past year to get itself together to address modernization leaving it wedded to a 15 year old transponder design and a single mode reader.

Florida's is the second largest electronic toll system in the country after the E-ZPass IAG in number of toll lanes supported, so their decision will be a major force in driving the evolution of electronic tolling in the US.

North Carolina next

North Carolina Turnpike is the next toller due to make a decision on toll technology. Their staff will be presenting the results of their study of mixed cash and electronic tolling versus cashless or all-electronic tolling mid-month. They will also be making decisions this year on the kind of transponders and readers they buy. Being a transition state between the TransCore transponders of the south and the Mark IV transponders of the north they are bound to have vehicles with both kinds traveling on their tollroads.

North Carolina are bound to be tempted to follow the example of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission - buying dual mode TransCore readers and issuing SeGo sticker tags while proposing at some point that the IAG cooperate in using the second channel in their readers for reading IAG transponders. South Carolina already has IAG-specification transponders from Mark IV but does not belong to the IAG and is not hamstrung by IAG rules. Therefore the second channel in the dual mode readers in North Carolina could immediately be used to read South Carolina Palmetto Pass brand Mark IV transponders.

Georgia already has the first generation eGo sticker tags on their GA400 tollroad in Atlanta.

If Florida Turnpike is happy with the results of the ORT dual mode testing now under way and they adopt sticker tags for SunPass there would be much logic in the Carolinas going the same way. Once they are all sticker tagged, they have a spare channel for reading E-ZPass IAG tags.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-06 SMALL ADDITIONS 2007-11-07 15:55