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Market Demand
for Paper-Thin Toll Transponder Increases for Use in Traffic
Management and Wireless Payment Applications
Other Topics:
Pharmaceutical RFID,
RFID Transportation
BUSINESS WIRE
November 17, 2008
Four Additional Transportation Authorities Order TransCore’s
RFID-based eGo Plus Technology
15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems
Booth 436
NEW YORK-TransCore, the largest global supplier of transportation
based radio frequency identification (RFID) products, announces that
four additional transportation authorities are deploying TransCore’s
RFID-based eGo® Plus paper-thin windshield sticker tags. The newest
authorities include Dallas metropolitan’s North Texas Tollway
Authority, the Louisiana Department of Transportation, the Kansas
Turnpike Authority, and the City of Laredo, Texas.
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Ten years ago using ATM cards virtually
anywhere in the world was hard to envision. However, today, the
shift to an almost cashless culture has transportation authorities
deploying technology that can accelerate the use of wireless payment
and communication systems to support the move towards all electronic
open road tolling and emerging traffic management applications, such
as high occupancy tolling (HOT) lanes, congestion pricing, dynamic
road pricing and express lanes, to mitigate bottleneck congestion or
increase infrastructure capacity during peak usage. The tags are
also being showcased here in New York City’s World Congress
technology pavilion to provide left turn priority for buses.
“As with consumer electronics, when more robust and economical
technology emerges it speeds the rate of adoption because there’s a
better value proposition. This is what is happening with wireless
toll payment technology,” explains John Simler, TransCore’s
Intelligent Transportation Systems Group president. “For
transportation engineers, the ancillary benefit of greater adoption
is it enables a larger sample pool for traffic data that can be used
for congestion pricing or real time adaptive traffic systems.”
In this economy, the paper-thin eGo Plus tag, priced under $10,
provides a significant savings for motorists compared to
similarly-performing hardcase tags that have typically sold for $25
to $30 while improving performance capabilities. The sticker tag is
comparable in size to a vehicle inspection sticker and mounts easily
on a motorist’s windshield. The slim form factor also increases
point of purchase options making it adaptable to retail outlets and
more easily accessible beyond traditional toll customer service
centers.
Early users of the eGo Plus windshield sticker tag technology
experienced two to four times the expected motorist adoption rate,
quickly establishing that the paper-thin tag could aid in overcoming
deployment barriers that previously hindered widespread motorist
use.
Greener benefits: The paper-thin, batteryless eGo technology
provides environmental value as well.
* Increasing wireless payment of tolls reduces congestion and
eliminates idle times at toll plazas, lowering vehicle emissions and
improving air quality. By eliminating barriers to adoption, as seen
with eGo Plus tags, more motorists will use this form of wireless
payment.
* The smaller profile tag consumes less petroleum based raw material
to manufacture and reduces transportation and shipping requirements.
* The batteryless design of the tag eliminates the additional cost
and demand for batteries and subsequent storage and disposal
requirements.
eGo Plus technology is currently in use by
Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise for its statewide SunPass® system, the
Texas Department of Transportation’s TxTag, Houston’s Harris County
Toll Road Authority’s EZTAG program, the Washington Department of
Transportation’s Good To Go program, and Puerto Rico Highway and
Transportation Authority’s AutoExpreso island-wide toll system.
Other tags from the eGo family are in use in transportation
applications throughout the world including Bermuda’s recently
introduced electronic vehicle registration and compliance program,
Shenzhen China Customs border crossing automatic vehicle and driver
authorization system, Jamaica’s Highway 2000, and the United States’
Free and Secure Transport (FAST) commercial vehicle border crossing
program with Canada and Mexico.
The latest in the line of RFID products is the eZGo™ Anywhere tag.
To advance interoperability for electronic toll collection systems
nationwide, the eZGo Anywhere standard onboard unit (OBU) is
designed to simplify wireless payment of tolls for motorists that
travel across states and require different tags for each region’s
toll system, such as a motorist from the Northeast who travels south
to Florida or west to Texas.
With these orders, TransCore’s eGo family of tags exceeds 11.3
million transponders shipped while globally TransCore’s RFID
technology deployed in various transportation applications in 41
countries exceeds 35 million RFID tags and 55,000 readers.
About eGo Plus Technology
The eGo Plus sticker tag is a 915 MHz radio frequency programmable,
beam-powered, windshield-mounted tag. Packaged as a flexible
sticker, this tag is ideal for applications that require low-cost,
easily installed tags and is appropriate for electronic toll
collection, airport access and ground transportation management
systems, parking access, and security access. Each eGo Plus sticker
tag comes equipped with a factory-programmed unique tag
identification number that prevents the tag from being duplicated.
The eGo Plus, batteryless sticker tag offers a read range of up to
31.5 feet (9.6 meters) and 2048-bit read/write memory at a fraction
of the cost of older, less flexible RFID technology. The tag
provides the capability to read, write, rewrite, or permanently lock
individual bytes. Transactions are highly secure with encryption and
mutual authentication as standard features. Custom printing and
labeling is also available. eGo Plus tags are manufactured in the
United States.
About TransCore
TransCore's 70-year heritage supporting the
transportation industry spans a range of offerings for the toll,
traffic management, airport, parking, access control, rail,
intermodal, trucking, and homeland security markets. With products
and installations in 46 countries, more than 100 patents worldwide,
and pioneering applications of RFID and satellite communications
technologies, TransCore's expertise is unparalleled in the markets
it serves. In 2008, Engineering News-Record (ENR) ranked TransCore
No. 98 out of the Top 500 Design Firms. TransCore has more than
2,000 employees in 80 locations throughout the world.
TransCore operates as a unit of
Roper Industries (NYSE: ROP). Roper Industries is a market-driven,
diversified growth company with trailing twelve month revenues of
$2.3 billion, and is a component of the Standard & Poor’s S&P
Mid-Cap 400, Fortune 1000, and Russell 1000 Indexes. Roper provides
engineered products and solutions for global niche markets,
including water, energy, radio frequency and research/medical
applications. |
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