Memo E-ZPass IAG: you need Xerox, they've got digital license plate reading

Posted on Wed, 2009-09-30 21:01

Yah gotta love the nonsense that gets thrown around in discussion of toll technology over the Xerox buy-up of ACS.

John Fortt billed as a senior writer for Fortune and a specialist in technology and innovation says of the deal in a report in Fortune Brainstorm we picked up on CNN/Money:

"...many of the information analysis problems ACS tackles every day are precisely the ones Xerox scientists are trying to solve. For example, ACS, which runs the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system in some areas on the East Coast, could use Xerox character recognition technology to digitally read the license plates of toll lane violators and issue them tickets."

How does this senior technology writer at Fortune think they've been reading license plates on the Jersey Turnpike over the past ten and more years of E-ZPass.

Guys sitting on stools under an umbrella armed with a pencil and a notebook?

For that matter the Bay Area toll bridges that senior writer Fortt drives over frequently - if he's based in Silicon Valley - also have ACS doing their billing and violations processing.

Have they too been waiting on Xerox's arrival for the capability to do digital reads of violator license plates there in the Bay Area too?