Market Demand for Paper-Thin Toll Transponder Increases for Use in Traffic Management and Wireless Payment Applications

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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.

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.