Largest RFID Vehicle Tracking System Worldwide by 2024 in Egypt
THE EGYPTIAN MINISTRY OF INTERIOR RELIES ON COMPREHENSIVE VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY: TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AND VEHICLE REGISTRATION ARE DIGITALLY SUPPORTED
Over 100,000,000 inhabitants live in the metropolitan regions around Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, Schubra-al Chaima, Port Said, Suez, and Luxor. It is estimated that 20 million vehicles travel on a 45,000 kilometer road network in the Nile Valley and Nile Delta. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior wants to optimize traffic control, vehicle identification and automatic vehicle registration. For this purpose, the establishment of an RFID traffic infrastructure began in 2019 with Kathrein Solutions, a German technology partner for UHF RFID readers from Stephanskirchen.
In an interview with RFID & Wireless IoT Global, Christian Schnebinger, Deputy Sales Officer at Kathrein Solutions, reports on the successful pilot phase and its the challenges.
Christian Schnebinger, Depurty sales Officer, Kathrein Solutions: “Together with local integration and software partners, a pilot project was launched at the beginning of 2018. We provided UHF RFID readers for the test, which were installed with four antennas each on four gantries over multi-lane highways. 5,000 selected vehicles were tagged with UHF RFID windshield labels. The test phase achieved the planned results. The MOI received live data directly from the flowing traffic. The data consistency matched the exact requirements of the ministry, allowing us to proceed directly to the first rollout phase together with our solution partners on-site.”
10 Million Labels for the First Rollout Phase
By the end of 2019, around five million vehicles had already been tagged with tamper- and counterfeit-proof UHF RFID windshield labels. Special headlight labels are used for motorcycles. The labels are encoded in Egypt under state supervision on a customized tag personalization system. The tag inlay is based on UCODE DNA ICs from NXP. The tag authentication is carried out via an AES co-processor and unique 128-bit AES cryptographic key. Data protection is ensured by un-traceable commands and a 128-bit AES group cryptographic key. A destructible antenna structure, die-cuts, and a VOID surface protect the tags from removal and subsequent reuse. "Each vehicle is tagged by employees of our integration partner Go+, and by local regulatory officials. After the registration data has been synchronized, the tag is placed. The tag ID is then linked to the corresponding data record in the dedicated, cloud-based central data center via handheld capture," explains Schnebinger. Three areas on the windshields are designated for identification, depending on whether the windows are metallized for UV protection or have a heating system for example. "Correct positioning is crucial to ensure that data is captured reliably every day from a distance of 15 to 20 meters, even at speeds of more than 200 km/h, and that end-to-end data communication is reliable," emphasizes the Deputy Sales Officer.
60 Gantries with RFID Technology for Seamless Registration
In total, 60 gantries will be equipped with a combination of UHF RFID and camera tech-nology throughout the Egyptian road net-work by the end of the rollout. The ANPR (Automated Number Plate Recognition) cameras will transmit the visual data of each license plate together with the RFID data via the backend of the Ministry of Interior. "An external high-security module ensures secure communication of captured data from each highway bridge to the government IT application," says Schnebinger. Once a vehicle has been tagged and the ID linked to the database, the tag is captured every time the vehicle passes through. "The Kathrein Solutions RRU 4500 UHF RFID readers, which are installed by our local integration partner together with 30° wide-range antennas, en-sure permanently secure, lane-selective vehicle identification."
Data Know-How from Egypt and Germany Combined
Two solutions are used to optimize data man-agement between the reading points, the back-end and end devices, such as terminals in police vehicles. The collection and communication of RFID and camera data at the gantries is carried out via the CrossTalk IoT Suite from Kathrein Solutions. "CrossTalk is able to process raw data from different sources, independent of technology and manufacturer, and provide this data in the desired event format", explains Schnebinger. The entire data management in the cloud and applications for visualization are developed and programmed by Go+.
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Article (RFID & Wireless IoT Global - 04/2020 | en)
Case Study (Intelligent Transportation Systems | en)