Electronic Payment Services Committee . Committees

Taking DSRC Payment Systems Forward

There is an evolution happening in mobile payment and the OmniAir EPS Committee was formed to help manage and advance it. As the toll industry progresses from 915MHz 'ETC' toward 5.9GHz 'EPS,' it can either chart its future as a community, or rather, as a hundred individuals with different goals. The Committee's programs reflect a cooperative approach based on a modern understanding of today's payment services environment as represented in the following facts:

There are more people in the EPS industry today than we think.
Business and economic playing fields are being leveled and the traditional toll operator must be ready for it.
When the world is this flat, technology usually allows others to innovate across traditional barriers between industries. In the tolling case, that means two new parties: banks and automobile OEMs.
Given these leveling forces, is there still a need for a toll agency, parking garage, or drive-through m-commerce service to self-design, build and operate a proprietary customer service center today?
In this new world, if you do not visit your neighbor, they will visit you. Isn't the best strategy to meet in the center?
Yes. The goal is to partner with your neighbors to change the context from contest to collaboration and from rivalry to relationship.

The OmniAir EPS Committee is addressing these facts because its members recognize that over the next few years, the tolling model - which operationally has been quite static since the early 1990s - will not persist. A collision will occur and it will not be between technologies such as GPS, DSRC, Bluetooth and the other telecommunication platforms embedded in the vehicle or in an aftermarket device.

This convergence will be between previously discrete business sectors: tolling, banks, and the automakers. They will be new partners because technology innovations like DSRC, combined with the driving public's expectations will eliminate those barriers and allow it. Banks, already possessing the data and experienced as account managers can be service centers and account issuers because they can do it more efficiently and meet the customer relationship requirements of traditional toll operators. Car companies seeking to maintain a tie with their customer base and generate opportunities for recurring revenue across all EPS channels will see the EPS application as the means to do this. The three, in collaboration, will comprise a new EPS Industry.

EPS Leadership

OmniAir EPS Committees was created by the Board of Directors. It has a Board Liaison member called the Executive Chair and two Associate Chairs, one each from the public and private sectors (as required by OmniAir's bylaws):

Executive Chair: Glenn Deitiker, President and CTO, Caseta Technologies
Associate Chair, Private: Doug Kavner, Engineering Technical Director. Raytheon HTMS
Associate Chair, Public: James Mwape, Business Manager, E-Z Pass IAG

The committee is open to all OmniAir members. To join it, click here.

What does the industry need to advance EPS in such a way that stakeholders want to deploy it? OmniAir's EPS Committee and the 5.9GHz DSRC technology. OmniAir members know that next generation EPS warrants a unique deployment strategy that must provide incentives and benefits to a previously separate group of stakeholders who now share common interests.

Click on the links below to learn more about OmniAir's EPS approach and its proposal to create and test the standards to advance it.

PART 1: BUSINESS MODEL
Electronic Payment Services for Next Generation DSRC (PDF)
True interoperability extends beyond the hardware. Without a standard EPS application, the 5.9GHz DSRC devices embedded in the car and on the roadside do not equate to interoperable toll collection. The approach spelled out in the pages of this paper presents a method to achieve that. While there remain concerns and obstacles that need to be addressed for all participants to better understand the full potential of DSRC, ultimately a road map needs to be defined that looks beyond the current vision. And it encompasses the ability to exploit today's ETC technology while preparing for the next generation of DSRC-based EPS.

PART 2: TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
EPS National Interoperability Specification Proposal (PDF)
This project is the next step the EPS Committee is taking to demonstrate and establish the model. It entails developing a vehicle-to-roadside electronic payment services national interoperability specification (EPSNIS) and verifying that it can support both a legacy environment and one where the payment media and customer accounts are managed by non-agency financial services companies. The EPS National Interoperability Specification constitutes the second phase in the EPS Committee process - to develop and test the application, payment architecture and requisite interface specifications for complete, open, end-to-end transaction processing interoperability.