Mexico's Electronic Vehicle Registration system opens with Sirit open road toll technology
The first installation of roadside systems for Mexico's ambitious nationwide electronic vehicle registration (EVR) has been completed by Sirit and Axiompass. The installation using Sirit's open road tolling technology including ID5100 readers, Sirit lane controllers and software and PIPS cameras produces a system that can simultaneously read the electronic registration stickers by RFID and their license plate numbers with cameras.
The combined data will be transmitted to a central database of the national vehicle registry agency which can find "vehicles of interest" for law enforcement. The system will enable the various regional 
enforcement agencies to pick up identified vehicles on a watch list as they travel along the highway.
If necessary police cruisers can be directed to stop them.
The Sirit/Axiompass installations cover 42 lanes at three toll plazas in the state of Morelos in the southern part of the greater Mexico City metro area. They will soon be reading ISO 18000-6C sticker tags being supplied by Neology of San Diego under what is probably the largest single transponder contract in history - 10 million units. The $40m contract for the 10 million tags was signed in late 2008.
Similar tags have been contracted for use for tolling in Georgia.
Prices have dropped to around $2.00/unit for 6C open standard sticker tags.
The tags are a close relative of the ISO18000-6B sticker tags from TransCore in wide use for tolling in Texas (TxTag) and Florida (SunPass Mini). They are also widely used at US-Mexico and US-Canada border crossings to identify frequent users with express border crossing privileges.
Sirit's 5100 IDentity readers are in wide use in California.
Multimode they can read older hardcased transponders like the old Texas Instruments Title 21 boxes, and first generation ATA read-only transponders still in use in Texas as well as the read-write sticker tags of the 
18000 6 series.
While the first EVR installation in Mexico is in a stop-&-go lane-separated environment of three conventional toll plazas, Sirit's Wolf Bielas stresses that it deploys a suite of hardware and software that can be deployed in a variety of highway settings including multi-lane expressways at highway speed and arterial and lesser roads.
Some thousands of lanes are expected to be equipped for EVR over the next decade as Mexico's national Public Vehicle Registry (REPUVE for Registro Publico Vehicular) fills out the system.
There are no technical reasons why EVR tags couldn't be used for a variety of tolling, road pricing, parking payment and insurance purposes once the institutional and legal arrangements are made.
But for now the EVR system is intended to be used to check on vehicles without proper registration and to help police find stolen vehicles or vehicles used in other crimes.
Brazil is implementing a similar EVR system to Mexico.
3M and Sirit are working to promote similar EVR systems in the US but American state motor registries have been slower to adopt the technology.
Jeronimo Beltran, president of Axiompass is quoted: “We are thrilled to have installed the first fully functional EVR system in Latin America. We continue to find that the ID5100’s flexibility and ease of installation enables a seamless integration of the new RFID system into Mexico’s current infrastructure. We 
are very pleased with the progress and success of this project.”
Wolf Bielas, Sirit's president for Latin America, is quoted: “I am very excited to have Sirit’s ID5100 reader and lane controller technology as an integral piece of the first operational EVR system in Latin America. This is a testament to Sirit’s development efforts creating leading edge, functional and reliable RFID technology. We believe this is just the start for Mexico and other countries as the positive impact on safety and security is generated through the implementation of a full scale EVR system."
see earlier report in June:
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4214
TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-29
