Kapsch

Federal Signal, Kapsch and TransCore, the three big suppliers of toll equipment in north America are all expected to announce three-way readers later this year. East coast tollers say three-mode readers would be a huge advance toward regional interoperability arrangements, and that the big three have each said they have such a product in development and are close to releasing the news.

Austria-based Kapsch TraficCom has increased its shareholding in Norwegian competitor Q-Free to 20%, requiring formal notification under Norwegian law.

Q-Free CEO Øyvind Isaksen comments that Kapsch had not approached its Board before the share purchase, and haven't disclosed their strategic intentions and rationale:

Federal Signal and Kapsch have an agreement to work together to provide joint products and make joint proposals in procurement of toll systems in north America.

As of this morning Feb 1, 2011 Mark IV IVHS - the sole source supplier of E-ZPass group transponders and readers since the inception of electronic toll collection in the mid-1990s -is no more. Gone is the heavy thick ultra-bold compressed MARKIV and the 'Reinventing the road' slogan underneath.

Kapsch, the large international toll systems company has completed the acquisition of Mark IV IVHS, the Toronto-based toll systems operation that has made a major business out of supplying E-ZPass electronic toll collection equipment since its introduction 12 years ago.

Kapsch the big European-based toll systems company is buying Mark IV IVHS, sole supplier of transponders and readers to the huge E-ZPass group of tollers in America.

North America's first electronic toll (ET) collection using the advanced 5.9GHz WAVE technology will be in live testing in parallel with TransCore eGo ticker tags on the Port of Hood River (PoHR) toll bridge on the Columbia River in a few weeks time.

By April 2011 Johannesburg metro area in South Africa should have a world class all electronic toll (AET) system doing upwards of 2m toll transactions/day and collecting $500m/year.

Salahdin Yacoubi has been appointed president of the Kapsch group subsidiary in South Africa. Yacoubi has been a leading figure in managing two of the world's first three implementations of all electronic tolling - Melbourne CityLink in Australia and Autopista Central in Santiago Chile. (The other was 407ETR in Toronto Canada.)