Big Brother, here for your convenience

[jducoeur]

So we got home from Colorado this evening, arrived at Logan Airport, and went over to the parking lot. I pulled out my garage ticket, stuck it into the payment machine (they now ask you to pre-pay before going to your car), stuck in my credit card to pay, and got my receipt. Helpfully, the receipt told me which row my car was parked in, in case I had forgotten.

How the blithering heck did it know where my car was parked?

I mean, this was an anonymously-taken ticket from a week ago; they *might* infer which level I might be parked in (since it was the one they were encouraging at the time), but I parked in one of a number of open rows. Yes, I did scribble the location on my ticket, but I'd be damned impressed at any OCR software that can figure out my handwriting.

My best guess (and I'm open to simpler explanations) is that they're going through Long-Term Parking each night, recording the license plate numbers of all of the cars parked there, looking them up, and cross-referencing them with the credit card submitted for payment. (Or that they are photographing your license plate as you take your ticket when entering, and doing the cross-reference that way.) That's a non-trivial piece of engineering, but entirely feasible. But man -- that's kind of creepy, and it wouldn't even have occurred to me that they were doing it if it wasn't for that helpful line on the receipt...

Comments

[jducoeur]

I'm assuming you're talking about Fast Lane, the Massachusetts name for the EZ Pass toll transponders used along the eastern seaboard states.

True -- but he's not the only one who conflates the two names. I make that mistake fairly often (having gone through EZ Pass tolls almost as often as Fast Lane ones).

Each lane at every toll plaza that reads Fast Lane transponders has it's own reader

True, but note that that is *not* how it works down in New Jersey. Highways that have really been redesigned properly for the system (such as the Garden State) just record the thing as you drive, more or less normally, at highway speeds, and not necessarily precisely in-lane. The system doesn't actually require the slow and separated cars that we have here: that's just the way it got retrofitted into the old toll booths.

So that implies that the system can cope with at least a somewhat messier environment if you design it right.

Hadn't known about the battery issue. Dumb design, indeed...

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's no reason to force the extra slow speeds that most plazas seem to want. NY is the worst offender on this, I think, at 5 MPH. The system, even as used in Massachusetts, works at highway speeds (don't ask me how I know). I've used the high speed lanes in NJ, and they do work essentially the same way. There may be a bit of lane overlap in the reader field, but it's still a query-response to a vehicle passing under it.