How to ease the traffic congestion on the highway?

As the traffic volume increases exponentially, toll stations become a bottleneck for roads due to the traditional manual or half-manual collection method confronting the cars queuing for toll collection.

Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) is an electronic payment system widely promoted to ease the traffic jam for highways, bridges and tunnels. With ETC system, car owners can pass and pay at the toll station without stopping. During the whole process, the cars only have to slow down and keep certain distance with the previous car. ETC access capacity is 5 to 10 times that of the manual toll collection.

ETC depends on scientific technology rather than manual work any more. Thus, fewer toll stations will have to be built. Many highway managers have turned to ETC to make the traffic smooth, reduce their construction cost and provide more convenience for drivers.

Generally, ETC is inclusive of OBU (On Board Unit), RSU (Road Side Unit), embedded security access module ESAM, PSAM card, DI CPU card, and key system and issuance devices.

Why ETC technology is dependable?

No matter it is scorching or freezing, raining or snowing, storming or any other extreme weather, so long as you could pass an ETC lane smoothly without fail-to-work incidents, the ETC will prove dependable. That means a dependable ETC technology could ensure a stable performance despite harsh operational environment.

The first requirement for a dependable ETC system is its OBU, a terminal fixed on the car to communicate with RSU. Its performance is closely related to ETC?s stability. Among different OBU technologies, integrated chip is a good choice.

With integrated chip technology, OBU is fixed at a 5.8Ghz working frequency, ensuring its stable performance. Watchdata OBU adds to integrated chip another technology, narrow-band receiver technology, to ensure that OBU will not be disturbed by other RSUs but could accurately communicate with the very corresponding one.

Another requirement for ETC stability is the interoperability of all ETC components. It is preferred that these components be highly compatible with each other or be from the same company. Unfortunately, only a few companies could produce the whole ETC set at presently, while Watchdata is such one in China as it offers a complete set including all ETC components. That ensures a higher-level of compatibility and stability.

Related products:

OBU:

OBU, also named "e-Tag", is an on board unit installed on the front windshield. When the car passes an ETC toll station, OBU communicates with RSU and debit transaction takes place.

RSU:

Road Side Unit, also called "ETC antenna", is installed 3-5m above the toll station lanes.

Issuance Devices:

Issuance devices are what managers of highway use when issuing OBU. There are two issuances in total, the first the incorporation of the operator information to the OBU and second is addition of car owner information.

ESAM and PSAM

ESAM is an embedded security access module in chip format installed inside the OBU, while PSAM is a card inserted into the cabinet that contains RSU. Both of the two were developed and invented by Watchdata itself. During the ETC process, ESAM and PSAM have to authenticate each other.

ESAM

PSAM

DI card:

Car owners insert a dual-interface card to OBU when the car is passing an ETC lane.

Watchdata´s TimeCOS® DI has been widely used in e-ticketing of world-wide transportation.

Key System:

The key system is the algorithm used during the inter-authentication of OBU and RSU. Watchdata is the key system supplier for China Transportation Ministry.

Related products:

ETC products

Related cases:

Beijing ETC