Dual Identification using ANPR + RFID in Electronic Toll Collection (ETC).

New Strategy to improve ETC

Volumes and Potential of Tolling in India

At now, 13,900 km of toll highway projects have been completed, and the annual toll collected amounts to Rs. 25,000 Crore. This amount, however, is still small — only 50% of what the expansion of highway development will bring about over the next five years. Without a doubt, every day that goes by, the government’s goal to improve highway standards advances to new heights. However, the establishment of a successful and efficient toll collection system has presented road operating agencies with a difficult problem in trying to preserve traffic flow while simultaneously extracting maximum income. The traffic flow rate on the new highways is higher, and the toll plaza stops are inefficient for increasing the capacity of the highways, which were constructed at a cost of thousands of crores.

The days of manual toll collecting and lengthy lines of travelers waiting to pay for tolls are long gone on a global scale. These days, electronic toll collection (ETC) systems — which are sophisticated and focused on technology — are the mainstay of toll management. In order to make ETC work smoothly and efficiently, a number of devices are connected to one another and run in unison. Without a doubt, the authorities and toll collectors alike have found it easier to collect tolls with this type of automated, centrally connected and managed system.

RFID application in India as an ETC platform for a National Standard

Not to be overlooked, radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a crucial component of modern toll systems. It is a type of wireless communication that tracks and identifies cars using radio waves. When a user enters the communication zone, the RFID reader communicates with the tag to rapidly complete the transaction. The exit boom barrier rises at this point to allow the car to pass. The technology selected for India is 18000–6c, which is a fairly affordable solution with some readily surmountable drawbacks.

Expectations for Accuracy vs. Limitations of Current Technology

RFID based on ISO 18000–6c is further challenged by the National Highway Authority of India’s (NHAI) recommendation that the accuracy level should not be less than 99.5%. RFID’s reading of 96%, or 4.5% less, is startling, even if scoring 99 out of every 100 vehicles that pass through the electronic toll collection (ETC) lane need not be a chore for any system. Furthermore increase the likelihood that the tag will be ripped or damaged as a result of an unsuccessful attempt to use it in two different cars.

What factors actually influence RFID accuracy?

Well, a number of factors come together to determine RFID’s destiny. RFID accuracy is mostly determined by the reader’s distance from the tag range, the tag’s control and placement, its size, performance, access time, and location data stored in the database.

Solutions

But is there really no way to solve a problem like this? Metro Infrasys (MI) has a straightforward but efficient method to get over this unavoidable problem.

Technocrats at Metro Infrasys claim that output is significantly improved when RFID and automated plate number recognition (APNR) are combined. In one of our landmark projects, we piloted and deployed an ANPR camera with an infrared (IR) illuminator before the payment booth across all lanes. Each ANPR camera will be integrated with an ANPR server that is equipped with artificial intelligence (AI)-based software to process the vehicle number with picture since ANPR cameras are able to capture the frame of every vehicle’s number plate.

The output of the ANPR software is then combined with the toll lane software to verify that the local database of valid tags contains the information about journeys that are now accessible. The system will complete the transaction if the details are valid.

Together, the APNR and RFID technologies will raise the RFID reader’s overall reading accuracy to 99.5%. The transaction is performed in a matter of seconds if any system verifies the correct car number and then the appropriate transaction for each vehicle class. The toll barrier only opens at that point; if the payment is not verified, it will not open.

Manual back office Correction for the 100 per cent accuracy

To achieve 100% correctness, a manual back office is configured to rectify the non-standard number plates. By the time we publish our next piece on the subject, the outcomes of that will be available.