ETC, spreading nationwide, is one of the most advanced systems in the world.
1.A unified system is used nationwide.
Toll roads in Japan are operated and administrated by multiple toll road companies. Thus, there are also various toll rates such as flat rate toll, toll per trip length, etc. However, as the system is unified and used nationwide, there is no inconvenience to users wherever they drive through.
* The ETC in the US requires a different tag for each toll road. (A one piece type on-board device)
2.ETC uses the 5.8GHz active system, which is an international standard.
Open competitive market is created in ETC businesses because the internationally-standardized 5.8GHz active system is used for the communication between toll booths and on-board equipment(OBE).
- Japan’s communication application interface used for DSRC, Dedicated Short Range Communications, is formed based on ISO14906 established in 1998.
- In 2000, ITU, International Telecommunication Union, approved the 5.8GHz DSRC as the suggested service frequency range on the ETC system.
3.Adoption of a two-piece method supporting a variety of usages
By adopting the two-piece method, in which vehicle information is stored in the OBE and personal information in the ETC card, allows the owner of the vehicle and the payer of the tolls to be different persons.
Therefore, an ETC card holder can pay tolls via ETC system in a drive with the third person's vehicle such as a rental car.
Furthermore, the two-piece structure is superior to other ones as it can apply for multi-functional use. Combination of OBE and ETC card is applicable to the other services than payment on toll roads.
4.Security and protection of privacy
ETC card is a IC card with a CPU built-in IC chip that enables mutual authentication and cryptographic processing of data. As a result, it has more sophisticated security against illegal use and privacy protection as compared to magnetic cards.
5.Differences from the tag method adopted in US/ Europe
Tag is commonly distributed at low cost in the US and European countries for the toll payment. The tag is a simple on-board device to be attached to windshields for the communication between vehicle and toll booth.
The tag method is suitable for relatively small network of toll roads and low amount of tolls. With this method, tolls are deducted from user's account priory registered to the ID tag.
In Japan, it is difficult to adopt this tag method due to the following reasons:
- The toll road network is nationwide.
- A single trip may include drive on multiple toll roads by different road owners.
- The toll rate at each road is relatively high,
- Various toll discounts are offered by multiple road owners from time to time.
From above reasons, if the tag system were introduced in Japan it would require a complicated system center equipped with a computer system that would process a large number of nationwide IDs and rapid calculation of toll amount for each user. In addition, mutual authentication would not be enough between multiple users and multiple road owners, thus, protection of illegal usage might be unsatisfactory.
On the other hand, in the active method adopted in Japan, the system is equipped with the mutual authentication between roadside system and on-board device and a highly advanced cryptographic method. The system secures confidential information of users and can also correspond to the demand for various toll payment service.
