OmniAir Completes EPS Specification Development & Testing

Falls Church, Virginia, October 12, 2011.  The OmniAir Consortium announced today the completion of the development and testing of an Electronic Payment Services National Interoperability Specification (EPSNIS).  The EPSNIS is a next generation ETC Services technical standard written by OmniAir’s EPS Committee to control a financial transaction network for electronic processing of vehicle transactions.  The primary purpose of an EPSNIS controlled transaction network is to process toll payments; however, other categories of payments are not precluded.  When published in the near future, the EPSNIS will provide an open standard interface that financial institutions, banks, and toll operators can use to format and communicate toll transactions for processing.  The concept is analogous to the credit card industry’s payment processing system.  The difference lies in the additional fields the EPSNIS includes for information traditionally required for toll transactions.  The ultimate goal of the project is to enable toll interoperability in the ‘back-office’ by allowing – through a standard all operators can use – a driver to travel anywhere in North America and pay tolls in an interoperable manner, in much the same manner one uses a credit card for retail purchases.

Tim McGuckin, Executive Director of OmniAir expressed his views on this significant milestone: “This testing effort has resulted in a major step forward in achieving transportation payment interoperability in North America.  The EPSNIS can provide the standard for the back-end processes that will ultimately serve to give the motoring public the ability to drive coast to coast and pay tolls in precisely the same way they would use their credit or debit card.  Additionally, it opens up toll transaction processing to a wider range of potential providers.  More competition is always good for the consumer, and by that I mean both the driver and, as importantly, toll operators who procure transaction services.  The consolidated efforts from both public and private organizations who participated should be commended as it has resulted in a tool the entire industry can deploy to give more capability and convenience to the driving public, potentially at a much lower cost, a rare win-win in today’s business environment.”

The OmniAir EPS Committee’s Test Team participants included public and private entities.  Key support was provided by financial services providers BancPass and Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS), and The New York State Bridge Authority’s Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.  The project sponsor was Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who also provided contract oversight.  Funding was provided by the I-95 Corridor Coalition though more than 40% of the project value was in in-kind contributions of labor and materials.   Kapsch provided the 5.9GHz DSRC roadside equipment and associated installation/configuration support.  Project Management was by JAFA Technologies reporting to OmniAir, the program manager.  Existing 915MHz E-ZPass tags and 5.9GHz tags were used for vehicle to roadside communications.  Although license capture and read equipment was not used, the data fields for license plate identification were fully tested.  Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) was the independent test organization that performed the specification test according to scripted test cases and reported the test results.  It should also be noted that a significant portion of the effort made for this test was the result of in-kind contributions from both the public and private sector organizations. 

The EPSNIS is “technology agnostic” – it will work with any and all forms of vehicle-to-roadside communication and was intentionally tested using different media with this capability in mind.  An EPSNIS-enabled interoperable network is envisioned to have On-Board Equipment (OBE) Provisioners that will perform in much the same way that Credit Card issuers function.  The OBE represents the media used in vehicle to roadside communications and is not necessarily a traditional transponder.  The OBE could be a license plate in which case the OBE Provisioner would issue and maintain an account for the vehicle using the plate number.  The OBE Provisioner would be responsible for account maintenance and billing with the patron.  When deployed, the question of who provides and maintains the lane level equipment to capture the transaction events will be worked out between service providers and toll agencies and will be a function of whichever method proves to be the most cost effective and efficient.  The EPSNIS is silent on such business issues because the EPS Committee agreed that the toll industry is best-suited to make these decisions rather than have them prescribed by some standard.

The specification is versatile in accommodating variances in business rules to support adjustments, settlements, and reconciliation as required by individual toll agencies.  Ed Mulka, a seasoned Program Manager who held Project Management responsibilities for this effort, was quoted as saying, ”By far the biggest contribution that this specification will provide is the reduced cost of deploying and integrating a toll collection and audit system.  The specification can serve to virtually eliminate the risk associated with interface efforts between two entities.  It will also allow transition to other transaction processing service providers without an extensive development effort should an agency wish to do so, thus favorably affecting operational costs as well.  In some ways, it’s almost as simple as a consumer changing an internet or cell phone service provider while keeping the equipment they already have in place.”

Clearinghouse Organizations would perform transaction processing on behalf of the agency and be responsible to have contact with all OBE Provisioners much like Clearinghouses do with credit card retail sales.  The difference with the EPSNIS is that it provides fields for events and information associated with vehicle tolls not found in retail sales transactions.  This means for toll agencies and Clearinghouse Organizations that the OBE Provisioning function is no longer restricted to operators.  It is possible for a financial institution to issue and maintain a toll account.  Since it would also allow an operator to outsource transaction processing functions to a non-toll related entity, one may see more providers, favorably affecting operating costs.

In summary, the EPSNIS is intended to be used to manage the interfaces between the various entities and not what goes on behind those interfaces.  It allows for separate EPSNIS network functions to develop to this interface standard and know what the transactions will look like coming from others in that same network.