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Q-Free ALPR technology to reduce agency costs and improve 230 miles of Texas toll roads
September 5, 2019 – Q-Free (OSE: QFR), a global leader in mobility solutions for smart city infrastructure, announced that its Intrada® Synergy Server (ISS) vehicle identification and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) system was selected as part of multi-vendor IBM statewide upgrade to the Texas Department of Transportation’s toll road back-office system. Q-Free ISS improves the accuracy of camera-based license plate recognition, significantly reducing costs and processing time for video toll collection.
About the TxDOT toll system
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is responsible for 230 miles of toll roads that run through Austin, Harris, Montgomery and Chambers Counties. The interoperable toll system serves more than 2.3 million users and processes roughly 835,000 daily transactions, including in-vehicle responders and video-based license plate recognition. To secure the contract and ensure optimal performance, the Q-Free solution had to prove capable of accurately processing 558,000 daily transactions or 17 million per month.
The Intrada Synergy Server will reduce TxDOT’s license plate image processing costs by efficiently and accurately processing high-volume, daily video transactions. It has also been successfully deployed by many large toll authorities in North America and around the globe.
Minimizing the cost of tolling errors
Toll operators must accommodate growing demand while maintaining high-accuracy automated license plate recognition. System inaccuracies increase costs by requiring data to be reviewed and entered manually, which can prevent toll revenue from being collected or create costly billing errors for toll patrons.
“The cost of errors while reading license plates can ramp up quickly, particularly for systems as large and heavily trafficked as the TxDOT system,” explained Bill Rapp, executive vice president of tolling solutions for Q-Free America. “We look forward to helping the agency increase its operational efficiencies and maximize toll revenue.”
TxDOT awarded a four-year contract to IBM to reduce back-office system costs and create a more efficient tolling system. Q-Free ISS is a component of IBM’s integrated, multi-vendor solution to quickly and accurately process millions of license plate images from the tolling system video cameras.
About Q-Free
Since 1984, Q-Free ASA (OSE: QFR), has been facilitating the safe and efficient movement of people and goods, with solutions that connect vehicles, drivers, and communities. Today, Q-Free’s elite brand portfolio features several top names in ITS including Intelight, OpenTMS, Intrada®, ParQSense, and Q-Free HUB. Together, these data-driven solutions improve the travel experience through smart intersection control, coordinated highways and arterials, incident management, toll operations, and parking guidance at the local, regional, and state-wide level.
Headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, Q-Free has annual revenues of approximately 1 billion NOK (120 million USD) and employs 400 transportation enthusiasts in 17 countries.
To learn more about how Q-Free is changing the way people move, visit www.q-free.com
Media Contact
Trisha Tunilla
VP of Marketing, Q-Free America
+1 (855) 737-3387
trisha.tunilla@q-free.com
Solutions Expert
Bill Rapp
Executive VP of Tolling Solutions, Q-Free America
+1 (404) 583-1079
bill.rapp@q-free.com