Mexican deployment of ISO 18000-6C sticker tags for vehicle registration & tolling

Mexican toll and motor vehicle registry authorities are cooperating to deploy sticker tags on the windshield of every vehicle in the country. Vendors competing for orders for the RFID readers which will be deployed across Mexico are being asked by toll agencies there to demonstrate them in dual mode - reading the Amtech ATA hardcase read-only transponders in wide use for tolling in Mexico, plus ISO 18000-6C sticker tags - an open standard cousin of TransCore's proprietory eGo+ sticker tag now in wide use in Texas, Washington, Florida, and other southern states.

Mexico's National Public Vehicle Registry (REPUVE) will start issuing electronic vehicle registration (EVR) stickers late this year or early 2010, a follower of the Mexican tolling scene tells us.

San Diego and Mexico based Neology Inc late last year won a heavily competed contract to supply REPUVE the first batch of  about 10 million 18000-6C sticker tags for $40m - probably the largest contract ever for vehicle transponders. (By contrast E-ZPass took over 8 years and many separate contracts to reach 10m.)

Canada-based Sirit and a Mexcian partner Axiompass and the Mexican government toller CAPUFE (Caminos y Puentes Federales de Ingresos y Servicios Conexos) today announced success with Sirit's IDentity 5100 (ID5100) reader after a program of testing at CAPUFE's labs. The reader was tested reading vehicles with a mix of the new 18000-6C sticker tags and the legacy Amtech ATA toll tags.

CAPUFE director-general Tarcisio Rodríguez Martínez is quoted: "We are committed to using state of the art technology that adapts well to our needs and will allow interoperability by being able to read multiple protocols at fast speeds.”

 Luis Maldonado, CEO of Axiompass: "We are very pleased as the tests were a complete success with all vendors being able to literally ‘plugin’ the ID5100 and achieve excellent read performance with the existing (toll) tags."

Wolf Bielas, Sirit's Latin America president is delighted with the reception they got with their reader in dual mode operation saying this will help CAPUFE and other Mexican toll agencies bring the benefits of highspeed electronic tolling to all motorists.

CAPUFE hasn't announced any shift to sticker tags but once the national motor registry is getting EVR sticker tags on every windshield the toll authority will be able to discontinue issuing their own transponders if they deploy the dual protocol readers.

Here in the US

Here in the US 3M has been pushing EVR sticker tags with state motor registries, so far without any announced breakthrough, although there is chatter that a couple of states are close to adoption. Sirit is 3M's electronics partner.

TransCore are also marketing EVR with their slight proprietory variation on 18000-6C in the eGo brand.

Sticker tags are quite widely used at border crossings and other places for identification of people OK for express clearance.

BACKGROUND: Mexico has some 6300km (3900 miles) of tollroads about two thirds of which are operated by the national government's CAPUFE and the remainder are a mix of public regional authorities and concessions. Most of the electronic tolling is done under a single electronic toll collection operator IAVE using early 1990s design ATA tags of the kind still used in Houston Texas.

Sirit: http://www.sirit.com

Sticker tag supplier to Mexican motor registry: http://www.neology-rfid.com/

http://axiompass.com

http://www.capufe.gob.mx

TOLLROADSnews 2009-06-16