Mark IV invade the south - unveil reader of south's 6B, 6C, ATA, and IAG E-ZPass

Mark IV the exclusive supplier of readers and tags to the E-ZPass Inter Agency Group (IAG) since its inception in the early 1990s is now offering a multi-protocol reader (MPR) that will also read the new sticker tags from rivals TransCore, Sirit and Neology - the ISO 18000 6B (eGo Plus) and 6C tag protocols - that are sweeping pikes in the South. Named the Janus Multiprotocol Reader (Janus MPR) it comes as a standalone product or as a modular add-on to existing straight Janus readers which have been around for some years.

Interoperability requires legal, financial and back office arrangements as well, but the Janus MPR is another major step in  laying the technical infrastructure for one tag tolling all over the east of the country.

Janus MPR is clearly a response to TransCore's Encompass 6 (E6) that will read two of a large selection of different protocols and was a major factor in that company's win in the recent North Carolina procurement.

However the Janus MPR seems to one-up the TransCore E6 in one respect. It can handle up to four protocols simultaneously, whereas the E6 reader - it has usually been said in the past - has to be set to handle just two protocols of a selection.

The Janus also multiplexes across up to 4 lanes handling multiple protocol tags with that single reader so is ideally suited to open road and all electronic tolling - at least for active transponders (see below).

Chris Murray CEO Mark IV's IVHS division tells us this is a "customer driven product." Toll operators he says have been asking for a reader system that can handle different tags, which comes as a standalone piece of equipment or as add-on modules and which delivers high accuracy.

"Clearly a product is needed that can handle both the active TDMA transponders (E-ZPass IAG) and the various passive backscatter tags elsewhere."

Murray declined to discuss pricing, or target markets, but he said the multiplexing across multiple lanes will make it the most economical solution. He said the additional protocol modules for straight Janus readers can be installed in the reader cabinet in "one or two minutes."

That sounds like a riposte to reports of two hours and more needed for the switchover from a TransCore ATA/Allegro reader to an E6.

It seems to us the earliest market for Janus MPR could be South Carolina and Florida - the first because it is developing new tollroads and Florida because it gets considerable volumes of traffic with E-ZPass transponders from the north.

Janus MPR was not offered to North Carolina in the recent procurement won by TransCore wth their E6s. It apparently wasn't quite ready.

The official announcement says:

"With the introduction of JANUS multiprotocol RF Modules, the reader can support four lanes or two ORT lanes in multiprotocol configuration, handling any combination of the four supported protocols simultaneously, with all lanes and protocols reporting on a common network connection."

Lane-based for sticker tags

While the Janus MPR seems to have the edge on the TransCore E6 in number of protocols that can be handled at one time, a limitation appears at the end of the technical specs under Compatibility. The range of TDM active protocols including IAG and ASTMv6 (PrePass, 407ETR, MN/I-394) are supported in open road/AET but the various passive backscatter including the ATA, 6B, 6C are described as "Recommended in lane-based application only."

This item has caused us some confusion and we have made multiple revisions to try to get it right.

It seems to say that Janus MPR will not handle the sticker tags in true open road, only where the traffic is channeled into separate lanes by means of channelizers. It won't handle lane straddling vehicles, it seems to us to mean by saying it is recommended "in lane-based application only."

The E6 by contrast is marketed without qualification as true open road, and operates that way day in and day out in scores of applications in Florida and Texas and has just been chosen for all-electronic tolling - just open road, nothing else - in North Carolina.

"Active needed for good ORT"

On inquiry a Mark IV official explained that it has always been their engineers' judgment that active transponders are necessary for high performance in the open road, that passive backscatter as used with ATA and with 6B and 6C sticker tags is unsuited for good results, regardless of the reader deployed.

Most recently Chris Murray CEO tells us:

"The JANUS multiprotocol reader will read sticker tags in true ORT and handle vehicles that straddle lanes with additional antennas between lanes as done across the U.S. today. MARK IV believes that sticker tags in and of themselves have limitations in an ORT environment. So to be clear, it’s not the JANUS reader, it’s the sticker tag we are questioning as the best vehicle for ORT."

TransCore response

Barb Catlin of TransCore responds to the Mark IV news:

"TransCore welcomes Mark IV seeing the light of multi-protocol as the solution to national interoperability. It is very gratifying.

"As to the E6 specifically, it can handle more than 2 protocols. In fact it can do all protocols simultaneously and multiplex 4 lanes. There is no difference there.

"Prudent engineering will ultimately limit the number of protocols in a high speed, read and write environment to
maintain the performance and accuracy that toll authorities require.

"We are confident our third generation of multiprotocol reader and tag products deployed over thousands of lanes nationwide will have the best performing multiprotocol options for customers across the country." end TransCore response

We'd always heard it said that the TransCore E6 could only achieve good accuracy rates handling two protocols.

Maybe there's agreement on the general point that there are trade-offs - and the more protocols you try to handle the less accuracy you get.

Other features of the reader are that it is designed to make very efficient use of communication times to maximize signal capture and accuracy of identification in all protocols. Also the reader is designed to get measures of the speed of vehicles and adapt automatically to gain the best reads.

They even have a feature to make the best of signals from poorly mounted transponders: "Dynamically adjustable output power and input sensitivity coupled with more efficient use of bandwidth deliver greater success capturing and writing to miscounted transponders."

There is a five-fold improvement in buffering capacity (to 400,000 transactions), increased memory capacity, and new automatic switchover recovery. Operators are said to be given an improved and more intuitive web-based interface and remote diagnostics for checking RF power and antenna sensitivity allowing adjustments to made wherever in the network of readers there is a problem.

Technical specifications: http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/JANUSmpr.pdf

Legal implications

For several years there has been litigation by Mark IV and TransCore against one another over alleged patent infringements in reading one another's tags. That litigation - in Delaware - would seem to be rendered "moot" by the open marketing of equipment advertised as reading the others' tags described as having open standard protocols. But maybe the lawyers aren't sidelined yet?

TOLLROADSnews 2010-05-21 MANY CHANGES/ADDITIONS THROUGH THE DAY