CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Tolls are fees collected for assessing a particular road, it is a kind of tax-like fee collected to with the aim of helping to regain the cost of construction and maintenance, such roads are called toll roads. Toll roads in some ways have existed before the advent of cars when travelers use such roads on foot or using animal means of transportation like horses and wagons, Fees were till collected before they are allowed to pass such route. Toll roads were constructed by inhabitants of neighbouring settlements to the roads and use the toll system as a way of generating revenue to repay loans used in constructing the road and also for maintenance of the road. The toll system used at the time would arguably be made up of a wood block and some levers to ensure opening and closing after collecting fees from road users which later developed and today it is referred to as toll booth or toll gate. But unlike the old system which coordinates the collection of tolls from individual on foot and horses arriving the toll point at relatively different times due to the population of people using the toll system at the time which implies lesser traffic, lower standard of living at the time which was not really time conscious. The current toll system is faced with ever growing technologies which approaches evolution in their various areas with a methodology which looks for ways of doing things better by reducing the amount of time needed to carry out such operation. The advent of automobiles which unlike their predecessor have relatively high speed and contain ever growing technologies to meet the needs of this time, This cars makes use of these toll highways to access various urban locations for different important reasons which are time sensitive and cannot be subjected to the relatively slow running Toll gates which are coordinated by human who are not as operationally efficient as the machines they are up against thereby leading to various anomalies like traffic, time wasting etc. which will discussed during the course of this work. Showing the inevitable need of an electronic system which can operate at equal operational efficiency as their machine counterparts(vehicles), This will be carried out with the use of Radio Frequency Identification and Detection (RFID) technologies as the main means of communication between the toll system and the vehicles.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Roads are constructed around the world for easy, safer, and fast movement of people and goods from one place to another. Some of these roads are used by hundreds to thousands of people. Economic activities and a group of other services e.g health depend on the effective passage of people through that route to function as they should which is why some of those roads are constructed wide to improve the effectiveness of passage with direct relation to decrease the time spent to pass through such roads. Despite the large amount of money spent to construct such roads for above stated purpose, Toll booths or gates built on those roads are jeopardizing the purpose of those roads because toll collection and coordination of movements through are done by humans who are relatively slow coordination of the movement through the toll and more prone to errors in collection of toll resulting in lesser level of effectiveness which doesn’t meet the needs of toll system intersecting such busy roads hereby resulting in traffic, fatigue, increased accident rate, pollution, waste of fuel, and most significantly waste of time. This project work is going to replace human coordinated toll system with an electronic toll system so as to increase the level efficiency of the toll system to meet the effectiveness needs the people expect of the toll system in terms of improvements.

1.3 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

This is project work will cover the design of electronic toll collection systems using RFID technologies. It can be used both locally and globally. This project work will not cover the connection of electronic toll systems to toll company database instead we using an approach where the owner has a card which is registered with the company and certain amount is deposited inside which will be deducted from anytime owner passes the toll booth.

1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The project RFID Based Electronic Plaza System is very important for so many reasons. some major ones are given below

CBN Cashless Policy: - This policy is not yet fully implemented in Nigeria but it is around the corner, this project work is taking a massive step in the right direction which is implementing the policy in area of toll collection even before it is enforced by the government.

Security and Safety: - Security is a major reason for this project because if the old toll system which is prone to lots of security risk like robbery in the resulting traffic, Road users won’t feel safe to make use of that road and if the road is not a monopolized route they will consider alternatives which will add up to lesser toll income at the end of the day. Toll booth coordinators who keep cash (money) collected for toll on them are prone to security risk. So this work will drop this risk from its height.

Cost of Human Labor VS System Maintenance: - When you calculate the cost of paying humans monthly who work at the current toll systems compared to the cost of maintenance on quarterly bases of the proposed system you discover that it is more cost effective to go with the proposed system, it is clear that the proposed system will save cost.

Time: - One major saying in Nigeria which said in pidgin language which relates time with income is “Time Na Money”, A phrase which says that time is money, So nobody wants time in traffic which is a major characteristic of the current system. This project work will help to save time.

Comfort and Reliability: - How reliable a system will go a long way to influence if people will pass that route with the toll booth or an alternative, the knowing that the toll is electronic alone gives people the sense of trust in the system which is why this project will improve the reliability of the human coordinated toll system. This project work also brings about comfort as people don’t have to do much like interacting with toll booth attendant which could result in exchanging of harsh words, fight etc.

1.5 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this project is to provide a system with which people can make payment at toll booths or gates on roads faster.

 For this project the specific objectives are to:

·          Examining the human coordinated toll system currently being used.

·         Elicitation of various loop holes of the manual toll system.

·         Identifying various means by which toll collection can be done via technology. 

·         Identify the electronic requirements for construction of the RFID based electronic toll plaza system.

·         Designing an Electronic toll system using RFID technologies like RFID Reader and RFID Tags.

·         To produce a system which can communicate with other existing technologies to increase throughput.

1.6 METHODOLOGY

The above stated aim and objectives will be met using the following methods: -

·         Review of related works to project work in the electrical and electronic field.

·         Identifying various electrical components which will be needed for this project work base on analysis of their various characteristics.

·         Identifying various ways of designing and constructing RFID based electronic toll system using previous desired electrical components and devices.

·         Conducting a Survey on Radio Frequency Identification Systems currently available.

·         Survey on combining electrical and mechanical design.

·         Examine the feasibility of the proposed system.

1.7 EXPECTED AREAS OF APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT

This system of electronic toll collection is useable in many areas such as: -

·         All toll roads within the country and world at large.

·         Non-time based car parks.

·         Tourist centers.

·         Fund raising events.

1.8 LIMITATIONS

This project work is limited to areas where some form of money collection is carried out for people to access a particular route or place. This work can work only places where radio frequency technologies can be used. 

1.9 PROJECT ORGANIZATION

 This project work is divided into 3 parts for the purpose of pagination as follows:

Part one and three contains the following:

Certification, Declaration, Dedication, Acknowledgement, Table of Content, Abstract, References, Bibliography.

Part Two which is the body of the thesis contains the following:

Chapter One-Introduction: This chapter gives a preamble of the project work with a well-stated problem the work seeks to solve also stating clearing the aims, objectives, and purpose of the project. The scope and way in which the project will be carried out are stated clearly. The chapter also gives insight into the shape other chapters will take.

Chapter Two-Literature Review: This chapter looks at closely related previous works and also reviews previous toll collection systems before electronic toll systems were invented.

Chapter Three-Design and Analysis: This chapter explains in detail how various electronic components and devices at large operate and also discusses their characteristics that show why they are needed in the design of the RFID-Based Electronic Toll Plaza System with proper analysis.

Chapter Four-Construction and Testing: This chapter shows details of the construction of the project work clearly stating various stages of the construction and adequately following it with a testing process which is clearly shown in this chapter.

Chapter Five-Conclusion and Recommendation: This chapter provides a deduction that shows what all the other chapters within project thesis together are all about while also comparing the finished work with the project’s objectives making sure they are all carried out and the problems stated are solved. This chapter also makes recommendations on areas in which future works can work upon for further improvements in the research area.