Uncle Sam wants a national truck tag

The federal government would like to set a national standard for the transponders used in commericial trucking. But moror carriers want no part of the plan.

By -- Logistics Management, 7/1/2000

Uncle Sam wants it-a national standard for the transponders used in commercial trucking. When Congress passed a highway bill in 1998, it ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to develop a federal standard to provide interoperability for all of the transponders-or "tags"-used for motor carrier weigh-station preclearance and electronic toll collection. These tags, which consist of an antenna and microcircuit for data storage, work by transmitting stored information to a roadside reader via radio waves as a truck rolls past.

At present, different states use different tags for weigh-station bypass programs as well as for electronic toll collection. "Everybody is going along doing their own thing," says Dave Barry, director of Intelligent Transportation Systems and Research Programs at the National Private Truck Council, an organization that represents corporate fleets. "If you're a cross-country trucker, you need more than one tag today."

Although longhaul truckers would appear to benefit the most from the availability of a multipurpose nationwide transponder, it's been the national and state motor carrier industry associations that have been the most vocal in opposing the government's plan for a common tag. "The issues are twofold," says Ray Yuan, an engineer at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Md., who is working on the project. "They include whether the industry is willing to spend more money to develop a higher-functionality tag, and what role the government should play in promoting that tag."

California Beamin'

As with surfboards and Hula-Hoops, the transponders used in motor carriage operations first came to prominence in California. In 1995, that state launched a weigh-station bypass program for trucking companies with good safety records. Trucks that participate in the state's "PrePass" program are given a tag for vehicle identification that beams the vehicles' identifying data to a roadside reader. If the motor carrier has a good safety record, the trucks in its fleet are allowed to skip weigh stations, where state officials normally stop vehicles to check for compliance with highway regulations. Motor carriers have supported the program because the elimination of roadside safety checks means they can squeeze more trips into a driver's shift.

Today, a nonprofit corporation called HELP Inc. (Heavy Vehicle Electronic License Plate), based in Phoenix, Ariz., administers the program for California and 16 other states. A computer database developed by Lockheed Martin IMS correlates an individual tag's ID information to a specific truck.

Two similar groups have sprung up to manage weigh-station preclearance in other parts of the country. NORPASS Inc., based in Salem, Ore., operates a program for seven states located on both coasts. The other is a system called Green Light that is currently used in Oregon, which broke off from NORPASS in March to establish its own system.

At present, NORPASS participants may use their transponders in the PrePass system, but not vice versa. Political rather than technical obstacles have impeded the complete interoperability between the two preclearance systems. HELP Inc., whose start-up costs were borne by Lockheed Martin, imposes a transaction fee on truckers in its network. By contrast, NORPASS, whose start-up costs were paid by state and federal governments, charges truckers an annual fee for unlimited use. (The lack of reciprocity in the recent agreement allowing HELP Inc. to accept NORPASS tags was a major factor in Oregon's decision to leave NORPASS.)

Although existing transponders designed for commercial vehicle operations (CVOs) can be used in the current preclearance systems, they typically can't be used in electronic toll-collection systems. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), however, is currently studying whether one tag could be used for tolls and weight clearance. It's planning tests both in California and on the East Coast later this year to see if a commercial vehicle tag can be designed that won't interfere with existing toll-collection systems. "[The state toll authorities] have to make sure you don't screw up the existing toll-collection system," says Rick Schuman, a manager at the engineering firm PBS & J in Orlando, Fla. "If the tests succeed, you have to work out the back-office issues of transferring data and funds."

A Push From Congress

In response to Congress's request that it develop a standard for the transponders used in commercial trucking, the DOT has been working for the past three years with the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), an organization whose formation was mandated by Congress in 1991 to coordinate the development and deployment of intelligent transportation systems in this country. The standard is to cover three aspects: the radio-frequency link, the data link or chip configuration inside the tag, and the set of applications or uses for the tag.

Although industry officials were able to agree on a common radio link, objections were raised to the proposals regarding the data link and application set. Michael Onder, ITS CVO program manager at the FHWA, says the transponder makers complained that a common data link layer would require them to build a device that would combine the functions of both active and passive tags. (Active tags have their own power, while passive tags rely on the reader for power.) "It would be more expensive," says Onder, "and the vendors didn't think that there would be a buyer for it."

To rally industry support, the DOT with the help of ITS America decided to take the middle ground and develop a so-called "sandwich tag." "We'll take the two standards [that currently exist] and sandwich them between the existing data-link layers that are being used on trucks today," Onder explains.

In December, the DOT issued a draft standard for commercial trucking transponders that was built around the concept of a sandwich tag. Both the trucking industry and the preclearance system operators objected to the proposal.

"Implementing a whole new standard would not move us toward having one tag on the truck," charges Kevin Holland, the American Trucking Associations' director of technology policy. "It doesn't solve the problem." The ATA and many other state motor carrier associations would rather have industry continue its development without government interference. The national motor carrier group even contends that the government's proposed tag standard would hamper the growth of this technology.

The ATA further argues that the standard would be unenforceable. "[The standard] applies only to states that use highway trust fund money for weigh-station bypass," says Holland. "DOT can't tell the toll authorities what to do."

Although the ATA hasn't stated them publicly, some believe that the trucking industry has other reasons for opposing the plan. A tag covering both tolls and weigh-station bypass would require a considerable amount of memory and functionality, and truckers fear that the added circuitry could in turn be used for the electronic monitoring of drivers-something they have opposed vociferously. Fueling their fears was the federal government's recent proposal for electronic driver monitoring as part of its bid to change truck drivers' hours-of-service regulations.

Both HELP Inc. and NORPASS have gone on record as opposed to the DOT's plan as well. "The proposal from the FHWA has not been tested," says Michael Jackson, chief operating officer for Lockheed Martin IMS Transportation Systems and Services, the systems integrator for HELP Inc. "And it would impose significant additional expenses on the commercial industry already using these tags daily."

NORPASS also has concerns that a sandwich tag would raise the cost of the current preclearance system. "Building toward a sandwich protocol would add to the expense," says Gene Bergoffen, executive vice president of NORPASS. "And it doesn't move us that much faster toward a unified toll CVO solution."

A Better Tag on the Horizon?

Faced with a congressional mandate to deploy a nationwide commercial vehicle tag by 2003, the DOT has said it will decide this summer whether to proceed with a final rule based on a sandwich tag. In the meantime, one tag maker has announced plans to go ahead and develop a hybrid tag. Mark IV Industries of Amherst, N.Y., says it will build a multiple-protocol transponder that could be used by the major toll agencies on the East and West coasts as well as to meet the specs for preclearance operations. "You could have a single transponder on a nationwide carrier's truck, paying tolls in the major systems on the East and West coasts and bypassing weigh stations in between," says Paul Manuel, Mark IV's vice president of sales and marketing. "We look to have the prototypes done in the spring of 2001."

Although technological hurdles to developing a single tag may be solved in the near future, the political barriers are more daunting. The current presidential administration, for example, could well leave the matter for the next one to tackle. "It remains to be seen if DOT will continue down the path of rulemaking and whether the rule will stick," says PBS & J Engineering's Schuman. "There are forces that would rather see chaos. But I can't believe truckers wouldn't prefer one tag to multiple tags."

A Tag Team Effort