Digital vehicle registration tags coming soon?
April 1, 2008 by Alborz Fallah
Big brother is about to take another step up with Australian transport authorities investigating the possibility of using digital vehicle registration tags to track vehicles around Australia. The system will use very similar technology to our current electronic toll collection systems.
The transport and traffic authority, Austroads, has already set up a special multi-state licencing and registration taskforce to further explore the use of RFID (radio-frequency identity) tags for vehicle identification.
“At the moment we don’t have a specific agenda or a firm decision to use them, or anything like that. But we’re looking at it as environmental scanning of technology that is available and what sort of benefits it can offer road agencies.” she said.
RFID has uses from the supermarkets to tolling, but the soon to be realised concept of every vehicle being instantly identifiable through certain checkpoints, has its share of negatives.
For a start, RFID tags can be used in a similar way to point-to-point speed cameras. By measuring the time taken to travel a set distance, transport authorities could install tracking systems at every intersection – a driver’s nightmare!
Nonetheless, there are many benefits. The technology will allow police to identify whether cars are legally registered and also help track down stolen vehicles. If you’re thinking there are only a limited number of unregistered vehicles on our roads, last year nearly 38,000 examples where identified in NSW alone!
So far only one other country has taken up the idea of digital vehicle registration tags – the small island nation of Bermuda. An excellent proving ground for the technology, since there are only around 47,000 vehicles in the whole island.
Going by the average rate by which Australian transport authorities adopt new technologies, the digital vehicle registration tag system may still be some years away.
In fact, Queensland Transport (which issued over 14,000 speeding tickets in the recent Easter period, whilst still having the nation’s highest road toll) has already dismissed the technology for its potential to stop speeding motorcyclists.
“No current technology was available to meet Queensland Transport’s requirements and further research and development was required before more appropriate technology would be available,” a Queensland Transport spokesman said.
Obviously Queensland Transport’s requirements are not to stop unregistered and unroadworthy vehicles, but to issue even more speeding tickets.
RFID tags consist of a small computer chip which transmits a certain identification code when it passes through a magnetic field. Unlike a regular barcode, which has to be scanned directly and one at a time, any suitable antenna within range can read an RFID tag.
Literally hundreds of tags can be read every second allowing for a huge number of cars to drive through at the same time.
Would you allow your car to be fitted with an RFID tag? Would you support mandatory fitting of RFID tags? Is our current system sufficient? Tell us what you think.
Print it: 
******** F R U G L O ******** ;)
Big Brother raises its head again. Sounds good if you’re honest and not so good if your a Bogan cheat trying to buck the system by not paying your rego, driving without a license, insurance, speeding.
Another good cash collecting system for the authorities.
I can see this could be good for crime…
But if i am at my “girlfriends” house i DON’T want wifey knowing where my car is parked.
Its ok will NOT stick it on the windscreen, put it in a envelope and get a courier to drive round and round to keep wifey in the bark!! :-)
FRUGLO? Patent infringment!!!
Cheers
F-0
hahaha, got the priorities straight frugal…
once agian queensland stands in the way of technological advanc,ments heck theyt didnt have etoll till a year or so ago they still had touchtags
That rubbish we have toll roads for if he says that drive up to brisbane and an interstate toll transponder from victoria or new south wales and can use them down south as well
As long as it is not used for point to point speed checks then im happy with it. You should get booked for not having your car registered, no excuse, you get reminders in the mail all the time so you cant say you forgot, although i have once but it was my fault for not checking. Plus the vast majority of those unregistered cars are for a reason, mainly they couldnt pass rego so therefor are dangerous. I will not take Victoria’s or Qld’s road safety message seriously until they make it compulsory to get a rego check every year. That’s the 1st thing they should of done, not just put up speed camera’s willy nilly.
oh you haven’t heard? This is a safety measure to protect you from those horrible little terrorists whose life purpose is to remove all freedoms you enjoy in this oh so wonderful country. It has nothing to do with giving our trustworthy governments even more control over our lives…now shut up and bend over and take it like a good little patriotic Australian
Glen, in QLD we don’t require a roadworthy check for rego renewal!
Checks not required in SA either. However I read somewhere that despite having no regular chaecks, SA has well below the aveage for number of unroadworthy cars, yet has the second oldest aveage age of cars for all states.
Alborz that’s what i was saying, niether QLD or Vic have rego checks for rego renewals, as far as I’m concerned until that becomes common practice in both its hard to take their road safety message seriously.
I was on a bus on the gold coast surfside bus service and they pulled the driver over on a run for licence check and i have spoken to drivers that have a breath test through the window on the gold coast and brisbane local bus company’s and the police check the rego checks of the buses as well by looking at the rego sticker and a few buses that i have been on the buses weren’t regested and it expired the month before and a lot of drivers don’t check the rego sticker and one did and radioed the base to get another bus and i was on the same bus a week later and it had a rego paper was taped to the windscreen
This is bad,this could and probably will eventually lead to paying toll per kilometer.Its already been talked about in the UK and OZ
LOL. has anyone checked the date today?
Frugal,
ha ha ha.
no hiding for you mate ha ha ha ha.
your funny actually reminds me of the threat on the Brisbane transport system that brought it to a halt a few years back.
do you know how they caught the guy that claimed he was no where near the phone box where the threat was made from?
well he was a courier and they checked his GPS system ha ha ha ha.
agree with phill though,
this is getting a bit too close to that pay per K system.
first the government tells you its for something else to get people onside. “its for your benefit” they will say, and then WHAM!!!!!!! “GOTCHA”
and thirdly (but was my initial point)
dont they already use this technology on trucks????
they already track trucks to ensure they arent driving through the suburbs and also to ensure they arent driving for longer than laws allow.
is this the same technology?
i know a couple of interstaters, ill have to ask.
on many roads leading to the city there are scanning towers over the roads to ensure the trucks arent doing a “rat run” to avoid tolls.
o,
mate QLD has had ETOLL for many years.
in that time they have had about 4 changes to the system to encourage people to adapt it. what makes you think it has only been here for like 12 months?
People talking about this being used against criminals NOT aware of the fact that the this is being ipmlemented by criminals! watch this space…