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NEWS

Latin America's first passive RFID road toll system

From "IPICO and Dyna Group Launch South America's First Passive RFID Electronic Toll Collection System," IPICO press release, 5 September:

"IPICO Inc. and its Argentinean partner Dyna Group have launched the first passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system for Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) in South America.

"The system, based on IPICO'S IP-X® technology, is part of an open lane tolling system in Argentina's Neuquen Province. During the pilot phase, 2,500 daily users have adopted it and report 100% successful operation. Demand continues to grow and is expected to exceed 15,000 users before the end of 2006.

"Open lane tolling can be enabled with passive or active RFID tags and is credited with curbing excessive speeding, reducing traffic congestion and even combating crime. Passive tags come at a fraction of the cost of the active tags currently used in most open lane tolling systems, and hold the potential to revolutionize the global tolling industry.

"While drivers using open lanes pay up to US$50 for their active RFID tokens, using passive RFID could eventually reduce the initial cost of entry to a dollar or less.

"This dramatic cost reduction is critical to urban areas in the developing world plagued by traffic congestion, whose leaders recognize the potential of open lane tolling, but cannot implement it because the high cost of active RFID systems is a financial barrier to entry. Dyna Group is the first IPICO value-added reseller to successfully deploy an operational electronic tolling system based on IP-X® technology [which] allows the reliable identification of vehicles travelling at speeds of up to 240 km/h in dense traffic environments. The technology is also being tested in a number of other transport related applications requiring the identification of high-speed items, such as electronic railway wagon and container identification, tamper evident tags for container security applications and electronic drivers' licenses...

"While the global market for open and close lane ETC is expected to rapidly expand, the major opportunity for IPICO'S RFID solution is in developing countries with the electronic licensing of all vehicles using public roads, as well as electronic drivers' licenses. Transportation and law-enforcement authorities in many developing countries are currently investigating passive RFID-based licensing schemes to optimize traffic management, improve road usage and combat crimes, such as vehicle theft, cash-in-transit heists and the evasion of customs and duties at border posts.

"According to USA technology giant 3M, up to 30 percent of vehicles are unregistered in some countries, costing millions of dollars in lost revenues (Red Herring, November 9, 2005). These illegal vehicles are often used to commit the most serious crimes. To be truly effective and reliably identify any type of vehicle at any speed of travel, this technology must be deployed nation-wide on all major roads.

"The successful deployment of the Dyna Group system demonstrates that the vision of using cost-efficient technology to reduce traffic congestion and curb crime is becoming a reality, with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, China and South Africa well down the road towards the deployment of nation-wide passive RFID based EVI [Electronic Vehicle Identification] systems.

"The IP-X® based system, designed and installed at the Neuquen Province site features UHF passive RFID tags and readers operating in the regulated 902 - 928 MHz band, and complies with the homologation regulations in Argentina. This system will eventually replace the existing active RFID system. Both systems are currently running in parallel without mutual interference, allowing a smooth switch over from the previous generation of technology to the new passive concept..."

[RFID: 6 September 2006]