interoperability

Europe and the US have approached interoperability in very different ways; both regions having their roots in isolated, proprietary technologies from the late 1980s and early 1990s. The battle between vendors in Europe slowed the pace of development of DSRC standards as you point out.

Ugly word perhaps but Eurointeroperability captures the essence of EETS much better than the official title: the European Electronic Toll Service.  That's the term for a scheme recently adopted by the European Commission to enable tolls to be paid almost everywhere in the European Community with one contract, one account and one on-board unit (transponder or GPS).

ATI has issued a formal Request for Information (RFI) seeking a comprehensive solution for using license plate images (video) as the basis for inter-authority toll charges across North America.

FHWA has published undemanding if sometimes confused "rules" for tolls on value priced or express lanes, and newly tolled interstate construction under federal control.  The rules do nothing to "accelerate progress toward the national goal of achieving a nationwide interoperable electronic toll collection system," stated as an objective in federal SAFTEA-LU law enacted August 2005, but US legislators set FHWA an impossible task there, given the cons

Several toll agencies in Florida and the E-ZPass have begun exchange of camera based data to test the feasibility of levying tolls on one another's license plates in a pilot program. In most states when the transponder readers don't recognize a local transponder, or any transponder, a camera is triggered that takes pictures of the rear and sometimes also the front of the vehicle.

The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 (STAA or hb44) filed today by US house transport committee chair James Oberstar requires the US Secretary of Transportation to establish a "national standard for the interoperability of electronic toll collection devices for all  toll facilities on the National Highway System" within 18 months of the law's enactment.

Highway Toll Administration LLC (HTA) an electronic toll services company and Avis Budget car rental group announced an agreement with toll system supplier TransCore today to promote its 'eZGo Anywhere' transponder. A headline on the press release suggests the multiprotocol transponder is being rolled out now (see full text below). However a roll-out requires a transponder to be tested and accepted by toll authorities, and this has not occurred.

Representatives of nearly twenty toll agencies met in Dallas TX February 7 and decided to form an Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI). Initial focus of the group, mostly southern tollers, will be how to go about establishing license plate read reciprocity. With the strong move towards cashless tolling camera reads of license plates - 'video tolling' - becomes the mode for collecting the tolls of those motorists without a transponder account.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels this week stepped in to end the interstate tiff over transponder discounts. Acknowledging the Illinois Tollway was right he wrote to the Indiana Toll Road Oversight Board which supervises the concessionaire company and requested they extend the same treatment to Illinois I-PASS and apparently all E-ZPass group transponder users identically with the 40% discount proposed for local I-Zoom account holders.

Illinois Tollway officials are playing hardball against Indiana's plans for transponder discounts. Tollway chief Brian McPartlin says he's going to insist on full reciprocity in dealings with the Indiana Toll Road And he's got the backing of his board of directors to charge Indiana I-Zoom transponder users full cash tolls (twice the transponder rate) if Indiana doesn't come around.