Fusion^TM CVO Transponder Enables Pre-clearance/ETC Interoperability

Long Beach, CA (April 29, 2002)  The dominant providers of electronic toll collection and pre-clearance services to the commercial trucking industry join together in announcing a new interoperability service called PrePass Plus that will enable truckers to use one transponder for both weigh station pre-clearance and electronic payment of tolls.  The cooperative pilot program between HELP Inc. and the New York State Thruway Authority (NYSTA) is expected to be operational this summer.

“We’re delighted to join together with NYSTA to offer commercial carriers the seamless interoperability of this new service – PrePass Plus,” said Richard P. Landis, president and CEO of HELP Inc. 

The HELP-NYSTA agreement will enable participating carriers to electronically comply with state safety and credential requirements at nearly 200 PrePass weigh stations nationwide.  At the same time, HELP’s partnership with NYSTA will enable participating carriers the opportunity to electronically pay tolls at nearly 400 E-ZPass^sm toll plaza facilities in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts and West Virginia.     

 According to John Platt, executive director of NYSTA; chairman of the E-ZPass Interagency Group; and chairman of ITS America’s CVO Technical Committee, “NYSTA is proud to join with HELP and the other pilot project participants to deliver the long-standing goal of ‘One Truck; One Transponder.’  This interoperability is long overdue,” added Platt.

 ACS will be providing HELP and NYSTA integrated billing and service center functions that will make the pilot possible.  ACS State and Local Solutions, a premier provider of business process and technology outsourcing solutions to more than 230 state and local government clients, developed and operates the customer service center for the NYSTA and is the system integrator and operator of the PrePass system. 

“It is our intent to have trucks rolling with Fusion CVO transponders by mid-Summer,” committed Landis.  “HELP, NYSTA and ACS staff are working out the myriad of details needed from procurement to transponder encoding, and from enrollment to consolidated billing. This public-private partnership is an excellent example of organizations coming together with business solutions to improve transportation.”

“For more than five years I’ve been asking for this interoperability” reported Dan Einwechter, president and CEO of Challenger Motor Freight in Cambridge, ON and the first carrier to volunteer for the project.  “I’m pleased we now have the technology and institutional arrangements in place to deliver an important, value-added service to truckers.  I’d now like to see what incremental functionality we can get out of that same box – border crossing efficiency or compatibility with other toll authorities would be where I’d urge the partners to look.  These are services for which carriers are willing to pay.”

Discussions are underway to potentially expand the pilot in subsequent phases to meet growing carrier expectations, including new transponder functionality, border crossing applications and interoperability with other toll authorities.

New technology introduced by MARK IV has made the project possible.  Current ETC and pre-clearance transponders utilize different protocols.  MARK IV Fusion CVO transponders combine in one device the IAG’s toll protocol with the TDMA protocol used by HELP.  MARK IV provides the backbone technology infrastructure for the E-ZPass system.