Application of RID and SNMP Technology in Highway Electronic Toll Collection

System
Huipig Huang, Shide Xiao, Xiangyin Meng
Mechaical Engineering Deparment
Southwest Jiaotong University
Chengdu, China
e-mail: hhping2@l63.com
AbsractAn ETC system based on RI technology uses
radio wave to identfy cars passing through the toll collecton
site and automatcally debits toll rate from the car owner's
pre-paid account RI technology and its application in
highway ETC system is analyzed in this paper. SNMP is a knd
of protocol that has been widely used in network management
system for many years. Because of its easy use and strong
exansibility, SNMP is suitable for network management of
ETC system. After introducing the basic knowledge of SNMP,
this paper studies how to use SNMP to manage the RI
readers and te toll collection workstatons remotely.
Krs- Electronic ToO CoDecion (ETC) system; Radio
frequenc identfcaton (FI); Simpl Neor Management
Protcol (SNMP)
I. INTRODUCTION
With te amount of cas in China increasing greatly in
recent yeas, the trafc of te highway passageways is
becoming congested especially in holidays because of the
low efcient manual toll collection. How to improve
highway efciency, speed up te vehicle passage, ad
minimize te possibility of mistaen and unsuccessfl
collection is a great prblem to be solved now. An Electonic
Toll Collection (ETC) system is just te right solution for
this problem. Electonic Toll Collection is a kind of
technology tat allows for electonic payent of tolls. An
ETC system ca deterine whether a ca has been registered
in a toll payment proga, ad alert the enforcers if toll
payent violation occurs, ad debit the corresponding
account. With ETC, the driver does not have to stop the
vehicle to implement toll payent [1]. Over the last decades,
ETC systems have been implemented in United States ad
some countries, ad caused a signifcant improvement in toll
collection process. Now, wit te fast improvement of RFID
technology in China, several ETC systems have been
implementd for test on some highways recently in our
couty.
Radio fequency identifcation (RFID) technology uses
radio waves to automatically identif people or objects.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNM) is a
component of te Trasmission Contol Prtocol/ntemet
Prtocol (TCP/IP) protocol suite. It is used widely in
network management systems to facilitat the exchange of
management information between diferent network-attached
devices. By combining RFI ad SNM technology, tis
978-1-4244-5540-9/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE
383
paper investigates how to apply RFID technology to set up a
highway ETC system, and how to use SNM protocol to
manage te RFID readers ad te toll collection workstations
remotely. The system architectue is illustated in Fig.l.
II. ApPLICATION OF RI TECHNOLOGY IN ETC SYSTEM
RFID is a abbreviation for Radio Frequency
Identifcation. This technology uses radio waves to tasmit
the identity of a object or person wirelessly. It incororates
a small electronic chip called RFI tag. Data is stored on tis
chip and ca ten be "read" by RFI readers. RFID
technology does not require contct or line of sight for
communication [2]. As illustatd in Fig.2, a basic RFID
sytem consists of tree components [3]:

A scanning antena (reader)

A trasceiver with a decoder to interret the dat

A trasponder (tg) that has been electonically

progammed with unique information
The scanning atenna puts out radio-fequency signals in
a relatively short rage to activate the tag and to read ad
write data to it. When a RFI tg passes through the
electromagnetic zone, it detects the activation signal fom the
antenna. Then the RFID chip is waen up, ad tansmits the
informaton on its microchip that is to be received by the
scanning atenna. When the antenna gets te data encoded in
the tag's chip, it will decode the data, and then send te data
to te host computer for prcessing.
m
Figre I. Structural diagam of ETC System based on RFID
D)) (e l l -
Re.derAntenna Host Computer
Figure 2. A basic RFID system
RFID tags ad readers ae signifcat components in
ETC system. As illustated in Fig.3, when a car pa

ses
troug te toll collection site, te loop sensor apperceIves
the car; The RFID reader sends out radio wave of
questioning signal. Then, te RFI tag on ca sends out radio
wave of responding signal. I tis way, two-way
communication ad data exchage happes between the
reader ad tag on car. Then, te RFI reader transmits the
information received fom the tag to te host computer
systm for frter data-processing and storage [4, 5]. ETC
automatically debits toll aount fom the vehicle ower's
pre-paid account.
III. USE SNM To MAAGE TH ETC SYSTEM
A. Intoduction ofSNM
The Simple Network Maagement Protocol (SNM) is a
component of the Trasmission Contol Prtocol/nteret
Protocol (TCPIIP) protocol suite as defmed by the Interet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). It is a UDP-based network
protocol. As an applicaton layer protocol, it is used widely
in network management systems to facilitate te exchage of
management information between diferent network-attached
devices. It also helps the network administrators to monitor
the conditions of network devices for attention.
SNM is based on the manager/agent model. An SNM
managed network has fou key components: a SNM
manager, managed SNM devices, an SNM agent, a
database of maagement information (MI), ad te
network management prtocol [6].

The SNM manager acts as a interface between te

network administator and te management system.

The managed SNM device is a network node tat

can be any t)e of hadwae device such as
computer hosts, routrs, access servers, and printers
that ae connected to network.

The SNM agent is a network-maagement sofare

module that resides on a maaged device. I provides
the interface between the maager and the physical
maaged device(s). It collects ad stores
maagement information received by the managed
devices.

The SNM MIB is a collection of maaged objects

residing in a virtual datbase used to manage te
devices in a commuication network. The datbase
is orgaized in a tree stucture and entries are
addressed through object identifers (OlD).
384
KcCc\cJag |nJ0mOn1
Snds |nlamt:un
|0HuLOmuIct
NturctnImation In
|0mba>c
Figure 3. RI working principle in ETC system
As illustted in Fig.4 [7], te SNM maager and agent
use a MIB and fve basic commads (GET, GET -NEXT,
GET-RESPONSE, SET, ad T) to exchange
informaton [8]. The following Table.l is a list of tese
commands.
TALE I. FNE PbL LLNNPLbL SNM
Command Operation
The SNM manager sends an SNMP get request to the
GET specifed node in the MI tree to obtain one or more
variables fm an SNM agent.
The SNM manager sends an SNMP get next request
GET-NEXT to the next specifed node in the MI tree fom an
SNMPagent.
The SNMP agent resons with a GET-RESPONSE
GET- message with either the infrmation requested or an
RESPONSE error indication as to why the request cannot be
processed.
The SNMP manager uses the SNMP SET command to
SET set or change the vlue of one or more variables in an
SNMPagent.
TRAP
The SNM agent sends a TRAP message to report the
SNMP manager of extraordin events.
B. Application ofSNM in ETC sstem
Because of its easy use and strong expasibility, SNM
is suitable for network maagement of ETC systm. As
illustated in Fig.5[9], SNMP agent (MIB) is running on the
host computers at toll collection site. Here, the MIB stores
two kinds of imporat informaton, one kind is relevat to
te RFI readers, such as the sofae and hadware
attribute data of te RFI readers. The other kind is relevant
to te cas passing through toll collection site, such as ca's
I ad tpe, ca owne's account. SNM manager sends out
GET, GET-NEXT and SET commands to the agent in order
to get ad set tese imporant data in MI. I this way,
SNM serve can maage the host computers and the RFID
readers at toll collection site.
s
1 |~
Mr
Figure 4. Communication between the SNM manager and agent
11:u[-;ttt
| |kItr +l
U*.g.I'
1| .:_-tIT,.
7...o&at.i.
MI*-t'`
`J:wt.'TVU
W4.-1i1
Figure 5. SNMP working principle in ETC sstem
If te agent or RFID reader fails, agent sends out TRAP
to report te manager relevat failue informaton. Then, te
SNM maager sends out SET command to reair or reboot
the agent or reader. Besides, we ca extend the information
in MIB to maage more information in ETC system.
C Implemet a simple ME eample in ETC system
Mib Editor tool is used for creatng a vI MI module ad
v2 MI module. One can add Scalars, Tales, Imports, ad
various constrcts conforming to SMI standards to make it a
complete Mm.
In ou test, we set up a Mm tree that includes two kinds
of information. One kind is relevat to the RFID readers,
such as te reader temperatue, voltge, fequency. The oter
kind is relevat to te cas passing through te toll collection
site, such as ca's ID and type, rate and ca ower's accout.
By using te Mib Editor tool, we set up a MIB tee shown in
Fig.6.
Loaded MibModules
\ ETCTestModule
\ } dod
\ e internet
\ e private
\ e enterprises
, e ridreader
Wt,'
voltage
frequency
\ e etccar
id
tpe
rate
account
Figue 6. A simple example of MIB tree of ETC sstem
385
IV. CONCLUSION
RFID is a new emerging technology in ETC aplications.
It has been proven to be a feasible soluton for may
applications. This paper investgates te application of RFID
technology in ETC system. The ETC system based on RFID
has many advantages, such as reduction in ca drivers
waiting time, tster tafc witout ay congeston, assured
and accurate toll collection, cash fee, minimization of
harmfl emissions ad so on .
SNM protocol has been used widely in network
management systems for may years. This paper investigates
how to use SNM protocol in network management of ETC
sytm. By incorporating SNM in ETC, the real time
monitoring ad maagement of ETC ca be realized. I also
helps to reduce the ETC system operation cost ad ehance
the trafc efciency.
In conclusion, combining RFID and SNM together in
ETC system has practical value and bright maket prospect.
Thrugh tis way, we can improve highway efciency,
speed up the vehicle passage, ad minimize the possibility of
mistaken ad usuccessfl collection.
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