Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads by collecting tolls electronically. ETC system rely on some roadside equipment at frontend including automatic vehicle identification (AVI) devices, automatic vehicle classification (AVC) apparatus, and violation enforcement cameras.

System for AVI have been around for many years since the 1960s. Not long ago, active or semi-passive RFID AVI system gained much attention in ETC in different countries, e.g. 5.8GHz in Europe and Japan, and 915MHz in the US. Its maintenance costs is high, and has limited lifetime as it is battery operated. Moreover, active or semi-passive RFID tag is expensive, relatively large, and the communication protocol is not standardized.

Since 2012, there is growing interest in ISO 18000-6C passive UHF RFID technology in tolling system in the US. Some countries and locations have also started to switch to use passive UHF RIFD for tolling in recent years such as Taiwan, Vietnam, India, and North America, etc. The advantages of using passive UHF RFID technology (ISO 18000-6C) in AVI application is its inherent low maintenance cost. Moreover, the technology of passive UHF RFID is mature enough to provide the required read range and reliability in AVI applications. In addition, passive UHF RFID tag is relative small and low in profile, it has no battery for operation, it communicates with standard protocol of ISO 18000-6C EPC Class 1 Gen2 worldwide. Therefore, passive UHF RFID technology is a cost effective way for AVI, and definitely becoming parts of the global standard for electronic toll collection.