Ajoint venture of 3M and Sirit is quietly mounting a major challenge toTransCore's supremacy in sticker tags for tolling and other
motor vehicle identification. Since March 2008 3M and Sirit have hadwhat they call a "cooperative marketing agreement" or deal tocollaborate worldwide offering RFID reader/tag technology based on openstandards - the ISO 18000 6C, a passive 865 - 928 MHz paper-thintransponder that will read and can be written to at full highwayspeeds. It operates at a range of 8 - 10m (26 to 33ft) and has a 724bit memory and data transfer rates up to 640kbps - rather similar tothe TransCore eGo sticker tag specifications which are based on anearlier generation of the same standard.
3M's Traffic SafetySystems division is marketing the product and will do most of the primecontracting. 3M also provides the flexible plastic sheeting andadhesive packaging and printing.
Sirit provides thechip/antenna assembly that is the working heart of the transponder andthe overhead readers with the brandname IDentity 5100.
At the recent ITS Congress Sirit was showing IDentity 5100 tags that come in three forms:
- a windshield toll tag 67mm wide by 25mm high (2.65" by 1")
- a registration sticker tag
- a tag nestling in an indentation in a license plate
The products are not yet on Sirit's or 3Ms websites but they give out flyers.
Thetechnology is designed to work at 866 to 870MHz in Europe and at 902 -928MHz in the Americas. The chip is a derivative of the product chaintagging technology intended for manufacture by the billions for use onconsumer and industrial products in warehouses and retailestablishments to replace barcodes. It uses passive backscatter inwhich the signal from the reader is modulated to respond to a querywith data from memory and uses the strength of the incoming signal tosend back data, therefore needing no battery or power of its own.
TheSirit relationship with 3M seems to displace an earlier relationshipwith TransCore in which 3M contracted to supply an island-wide 
electronicvehicle registration (EVR) system to Bermuda, the British islandterritory of 65k population on 53km2 (21sq miles) in the Atlantic offthe coast of the Carolinas.
The Bermuda transponders are eGotags and the readers are the Encompass series. The TransCore eGo tagsare manufactured to the ISO 18000-6B standard the immediate predecessorto the 6C used by Sirit.
On their tag-reader system TransCore claims patents, while Sirit emphasize theirs are "open standard."
Siritofficials say TransCore's sticker tags are only a minor departure fromthe open standard of ISO 18000-6B via some modifications to timing.Antennas may also be engineered slightly differently.
6C chips have economies of larger scale
Siritsay they will be able to undercut TransCore's pricing because 6C chipsthey use are manufactured in far larger quantities than the 6Bs adoptedby TransCore.
Thefirst 3M/Sirit 6C toll transponders have been sold to a systemsintegrator in Brazil and are already deployed on some tollroads in theRio area.
A Sirit official says they benefit from a majorvehicle test facility owned by 3M and that the toll sticker tag is verythoroughly tested. Testing on registration sticker is underway whilework on the license plate tag is at an early stage.
3M isthought to be bidding at North Carolina Turnpike with the Sirit 6CIDentity 5100 equipment, but the company's main focus is in gettingstates to adopt electronic vehicle registration on the Bermuda model.If sticker tags were adopted for vehicle registration toll authoritiescould probably make use of them also to identify vehicles.
TransCore selling more
Meanwhile TransCore steams ahead with sales of their eGo+ sticker tags. They have recently made sales to:
- North Texas Tollway, Dallas TX
- Louisiana DOT for the New Orleans Cresent City Connection bridges
- Kansas Turnpike Authority
- City of Laredo, Texas-Mexico bridges
eGoPlus technology is currently in use by Florida Turnpike Enterprise asan option for its statewide SunPass system, the Texas Department ofTransportation’s TxTag, Houston’s Harris County Toll Road Authority’sEZTAG, Washington Department of Transportation’s Good To Go program,Oregon at the Bridge of the Gods toll bridge Columbia River OR-WA,Georgia Tolls on GA400, and Puerto Rico Highway Authority’s AutoExpresoisland-wide toll system.
6B sticker tags are also used in theFAST border crossing priority program for secure vehicles on theMexican and Canadian boders, for customs clearance in China, and fortolling in Jamaica on its Highway 2000.
TOLLROADSnews 2008-12-03