Raytheon HTMS is the turnkey provider of the largest number of free-flow electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes in the world. The company remains a pioneer in ETC and can point to a number of successful large-scale efforts for clients in both the public and private sectors.

Highway 407 (Canada)
Cross Israel Highway
Amerigo Vespucio Sur (Chile)
Minnesota Department of Transportation, MnDOT (United States)
Marechal Rondon Highway (Brazil)

The east-west 407 Express Toll Route (ETR) located in Toronto, Canada, was the world's first all-electronic, open access toll highway. Raytheon was the prime contractor for the ETR system, which became operational on October 14, 1997. Raytheon also operated the highway for the Ontario Government until 1999 when the province sold Highway 407, for almost double the original investment, to the 407 International consortium. In 2000-2001, the consortium extended the highway to its current length of 108 kilometers.

In 2001, under a new contract, Raytheon supplied and integrated significant additional roadside equipment—now increasing the total number of lanes tolled from 190 to 320—and enhanced the central processing system to provide additional capacity and functionality. This contract was completed ahead of schedule, providing all deliverables and meeting all technical specifications. While tolling system operations and routine maintenance have been transitioned to the operator, Raytheon continues to provide engineering and value-added maintenance services.

Highway 407 is one of the world’s most technically advanced and financially successful toll operations. Unique high-performance video capture, AVI/video correlation, and image processing capabilities provide efficient, effective tolling of vehicles with or without transponders. The system automatically matches transactions at entry and exit ramps to form "trips," supporting a distance-based tolling policy. Since 1997, over 433 million trips have been tolled, almost 8 billion vehicle kilometers have been traveled, and over 550,000 transponders have been distributed. For 2002, 407 International reported revenues of US$311 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of US$207.5 million.

Raytheon deployed its third generation, open-road electronic toll collection and Traffic Management (ETTM) system in Israel for the new, 86-kilometer, north-south Highway 6 that opened in December 2002.

Like earlier Raytheon systems, the Cross-Israel Highway (CIH) system supports high-performance, open-access, free-flow tolling of vehicles with and without transponders. Demanding video tolling requirements are satisfied through the proven Raytheon Roadside Toll Collection (RTC) subsystem and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Video Exception Processing (VEP) software advancements in the centralized Toll Transaction Processor (TTP).

On CIH, the Raytheon Roadside Toll Collection equipment is deployed on the highway “mainline,” rather than on entry and exit ramps, to minimize infrastructure, tolling equipment and maintenance cost. A patented algorithm links mainline transactions to form trips and enables a distance-based tolling policy. The roadside equipment is efficiently maintained without the need for lane closures.

The CIH ETTM system incorporates an innovative real-time enforcement capability. Enforcement officers with vehicular computers and wireless data communications are automatically notified when habitual violators or designated vehicles pass a toll collection point.

CIH also incorporated a full-capability Traffic Management System (TMS) which manages signs, controls traffic signals, provides video surveillance, and communicates with the public via web and telephone services. Advanced Traffic Management Center (TMC) software integrates and processes data from Traffic Probe Readers (TPRs) and loops to measure traffic flow and automatically detect traffic incidents, enabling fast and effective incident management.

In October 2003, Raytheon signed a contract to supply toll points for the Amerigo Vespucio Sur Toll road in Santiago, Chile. This fourth generation system has two new features—incorporation of the Chilean National Standard Protocol, based on the 5.8 GHz CEN Standard, and the capture of front license plate images.

When the State of Minnesota went looking for an electronic toll system that would allow them to cost-effectively convert the existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on the I-394 to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes, they elected the Raytheon ETC solution.

The Minnesota HOT lane project, MnPass, had a design requirement for barrier-free electronic toll collection with free flow conditions to maintain maximum vehicle throughput. This goal requires some very special expertise and technology. The Raytheon ETC system uses proven technology designed specifically for open road tolling at highway speeds with extremely high accuracy and reliability (≥99.995% read accuracy).

Another essential factor was the ability of Raytheon's system to minimize cross lane transponder reads to ensure minimal billing errors. The physical layout of the highway with the tolled MnPass express lanes are directly adjacent to toll-free general-purpose lanes and pose a challenge to the tolling technology.

The third key characteristic of the Raytheon system is that it is based on the open DSRC standard, PS-11. This is an industry-adopted standard in use throughout North America and Israel. Being non-proprietary, it does not unduly tie the state to a single system provider.

The MnPass system will consist of five tolling points in each direction along the I-394 corridor. The existing HOV lanes will be restriped to indicate dedicated entrances and exits to each section of the new HOT lanes (similar to HOV lanes in the Southern California area). Other than the lane striping, there will not be any barriers separating the toll lanes from the free general purpose lanes. Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOV) wanting to drive in the HOT lane must have a MnPass transponder properly installed.

To best manage the traffic within the HOT lanes, the toll rates are dynamically (market based pricing) adjusted regularly depending on the traffic volume and speed within the toll lanes. These changing toll rates are displayed on Dynamic Message Signs (DMS) that precede each entrance. The SOV user will be electronically charged the toll rate that is displayed at the time they use the HOT lanes.

A toll road system is not complete without a solid set of enforcement tools. The Raytheon system consisted of three enforcement aids for police officers: an enforcement beacon, an enforcement transponder, and a mobile enforcement reader. Each of these offers a variety of capabilities.

The beacon option consists of an amber beacon located at a toll site that flashes whenever the ETC system detects the passage of a MnPass transponder in the express lanes.

The Enforcement Transponder option adds another level of sophistication. This special transponder is designed to be used in an enforcement vehicle to provide a positive indication that the subject vehicle being followed has an MnPass transponder. The Mobile Reader allows the enforcement officer to read transponders while driving alongside the subject vehicles. This offers a non-intrusive means of determining the presence of a properly functioning transponder in a vehicle.

The Raytheon ETC System met all requirements set forth by the State of Minnesota in their plans to convert HOV lanes to HOT lanes in a very short time frame. The result will be a highly cost-effective and successful toll project that meets all expectations.

Raytheon HTMS designed and built a new lane-based electronic toll collection (ETC) system for the Marechal Rondon Highway in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, working with Catel Engenharia. The ETC system transformed the existing lane-based system into an open-road collection system, allowing the toll plazas to remain as toll collection points but without the personnel and toll collection traffic congestion. The first of the 11 toll plazas on the 450-km highway opened in March 1999.

The ETC system relies upon a complex combination of transponders, cameras, and sensors to perform automatic vehicle identification and classification, and violation enforcement. Each toll plaza contains three lanes that offer a choice of: (1) manual-only collection; (2) automatic-only collection; and (3) a combination of the two.

During the final testing phase, the system demonstrated 99 percent or greater performance rates in license plate capture, vehicle detection and classification, and transponder read and write communication.