AUTOMATED TOLL COLLECTION SYATEM
DEPARTMENT OF CSE, BUET
Menu Home How It Works Materials Circuit Diagram Gallery Code Developers
Introduction
Bangladesh has numerous rivers all across the country and with the progress of communication we are building monstrous bridges over many of those rivers. As ours is a developing country most of the time we dont have enough funds to build a bridge on our own. So we have to rely on financial help given by World Bank or any other developed country. As we have to pay all these debts we charge a little amount to all the bypassing vehicles on these bridges which is called toll. In our current system people collect tolls from vehicles by hand. Which is very time consuming and most of the collectors are corrupted. So the government doesnt benefit the way it would have if there were a digital system employed. This is where our system comes in to save the day. We built this toll collection system to reduce waste of time and human resource and most importantly to eliminate corruption.
Overview
In this system we will identify each vehicle uniquely with a RFID-TAG. We will attach a RFID-TAG as a sticker with every vehicle during the registration process. That RFID-TAG will bear the unique identification number for that particular vehicle. During the registration process the vehicles owner will be asked to provide the following information registration no, owners national id, phone number, bank account no and the name of the bank. In each automated toll booth we will have a RFID sensor and a load sensor set up along with the control booth which will house a computer and an operator. Whenever a vehicle will pass through the booth the RFID sensor will read its identification number from the sticker its carrying. And the load
sensor will measure the vehicles weight and the amount of toll to be paid will be shown in an LCD display. The toll money will be deduced from the vehicle owners bank account and he will be notified of the transaction via a SMS. If the owners bank account is out of money then this payment will be marked as pending and he will be asked to pay it as soon as possible via a SMS. If a pending payment is not cleared within 15 days then that vehicle will be blacklisted. If such a vehicle comes to the booth that doesnt have a RFID-TAG or hasnt been registered yet or the RFID-TAG has been destroyed somehow, then the gate will be automatically closed and the vehicle will be shown the direction to go to the counter following a different lane. In the counter the vehicle can register providing all the information needed and can have its own RFID-TAG attached or it can just pay the cash and pass by.
How It Works
Reading Card
We are using a RFID tag as a unique identification module of a vehicle. As RFID works in radio frequency, when a vehicle having TAG comes close to a toll booth the RFID sensor detects it. As soon as it detects the vehicle with a TAG, it sends the detected ID read from the TAG to our server through MAX232 serial communication.
Measuring Weight
After the detection of ID of a vehicle passing through a tollbooth will have to go through a platform where a load sensor has been pre-installed. When a load cell gets a weight, it outputs an mili voltage. This tiny amount of voltage is hard to detect, thats why we amplified this voltage with the help of AD620 IC and sent this amplified voltage to the ADC pin of our first microcontroller. Then weight has been calculated with the ADC in the microcontroller and then the weight and corresponding toll amount is displayed in the LCD display. The calculated weight and corresponding toll amount is also sent to the server through serial communication.
Gate & Direction
RFID reader outputs a voltage in one of its pins when it detects a TAG. Here the voltage output by the RFID reader is sent to the ADC pin of the 2nd microcontroller. When we get a weight, we keep a pin of our 1st microcontroller high. This is sent to a pin of the 2nd microcontroller as input. When a vehicle with both TAG and weight appears then two pins of the second microcontroller becomes high
and green light will be on indicating to the vehicle that you are safe and ready to go through this tollbooth without waiting a single second. The two pins that became high in 2nd microcontroller go to the 3rd microcontroller which controls a dot matrix. This dot matrix shows the direction to the vehicle that which way it should follow. We used another microcontroller that controls a stepper motor that is used to lock and unlocking the gate of the booth. When a registered vehicle comes, gate is opened automatically and locked in the same way to an unregistered vehicle.
When No Card
When a vehicle comes to the tollbooth which has no TAG that means an unregistered one , then one pin of the 2nd microcontroller becomes low which makes the direction shown in the dot matrix to become opposite than before. Stepper motor will close the gate and red light will turn on. So the vehicle has to go through another way where he will have to pay the toll manually to someone assigned for collection. If the vehicle owner wants to register his car with a TAG, he can do so here but it is optional. After paying toll, the vehicle can go. There is another gate which will be opened manually by pressing a switch. Unregistered vehicles will go through this gate.
DATAbase
We have a server where we keep a database of the vehicles. Its frontend is designed with C#.NET and Oracle database runs in the backend. When a vehicle performs its registration, mobile number and bank account number of the owner is stored in our database. When RFID TAG is detected and corresponding weight is measured then the amount according to the weight of the car is deducted from the car owner bank account. A SMS is sent to the owners mobile phone about the process.
