Advantech (TWSE: 2395), a global leader in industrial IoT, has partnered with intelligent transportation expert Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co, Ltd (FETC) International to co-create the next generation of management platforms electronic toll collection (ETC). The new platform helps operations and maintenance personnel quickly resolve issues, shorten troubleshooting times, and lower operating costs. The two industry giants have targeted the Southeast Asian region as a stepping stone to the global market and the first successful implementation was recently completed in Thailand.

Taiwan’s free-flow multi-lane freeway ETC system was launched in 2014. It is the world’s largest highway ETC system and made Taiwan the first country in the world to switch to a multi-lane free-flow toll system. fully electronic. This highly integrated open standard intelligent transport solution is a great assembly of Internet of Things (IoT), information and communication technologies (ICT), intelligent transport technologies and one-for-all services. It not only attracted representatives from Thailand, Malaysia, India, Kazakhstan, Vietnam and other countries to visit Taiwan to learn more about the system, but it also opened up new international business opportunities for the Taiwan’s intelligent transportation industry.

According to Dr. Allan Yang, CTO of Advantech, “Advantech has been cooperating with FETC since 2013. The integrated intelligent transport solution leverages the business intelligence logic of FETC and the ICT strength of Advantech. Using Advantech’s local sales and service networks in Southeast Asia, the two companies were able to jointly explore the Southeast Asian market and develop the next generation ETC management platform. for the Thai project – co-creating a model application for digital transformation in the field of intelligent transport. The platform is based on Advantech’s industrial application software, M2I / MachineUnite (Machine-to-Intelligence, M2I), which met the needs of FETC International in terms of equipment integration, management of ‘equipment and data visualization. The platform has also made maintenance easier and reduced troubleshooting times, ”said Dr Yang.

Mr. Kenny Chen, Vice President of FETC International, said that the cooperation with Advantech on the Thai WISE-PaaS platform project is of strategic importance. “Since the ETC system uses thousands of IoT sensors to ensure continuous, high performance system operation, there is a need to monitor the health of the facilities in each toll gate 24/7/365. Advantech’s WISE-PaaS provided a platform for data fusion and collaborative management. Combined with the decades of accumulated development and technical knowledge of FETC in the ETC field, it not only enabled fast and efficient views of all road toll gantries, but it also enabled inspections of each sensor in a 3D or VR scene, so that operation and maintenance personnel can take timely actions to eliminate problems and quickly resolve problems, reducing maintenance costs and shortening troubleshooting times, ”said Mr. Chen .

Advantech’s M2I / MachineUnite is a one-stop-shop development tool based on Advantech’s WISE-PaaS industrial IoT cloud platform. Responding to the needs of different markets and different mast systems of FETC International, M2I / MachineUnite can quickly create and configure the visualized dashboards required by customers, establish a digital intelligent control center using defined templates and get real-time traffic information. Once the equipment is connected to the Internet, the control center can easily monitor the operation of all devices via a virtual 3D scene and send notifications in the event of anomalies. Moreover, since the ETC system was mainly outsourced by private companies, FETC International could also use the various deployment profiles used by public and private WISE-PaaS clouds to provide flexible services according to different needs.

In recent years, Advantech has actively promoted the development of an industrial IoT ecosystem, hoping to create a whole new AIoT service interconnected with industry by leveraging its core skills and co-creation strategy with Area-Based Local Solution Integrators (DFSI). On this project, the collaboration of Advantech and FETC International is the perfect model of such a strategy in practice. In order to further achieve the promotion and application of the solution, Advantech will use a dedicated WISE-PaaS platform team in South East Asia to target the countries that FETC International is focusing on, such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. The team implemented strategic business development plans with local ecosystem partners and signed contracts with 12 WISE-PaaS VIP clients. In addition, the recently completed VinGroup smart electronic bus project in Vietnam will also bring a new stream of advertising to the next generation of ETC system management platforms. Advantech and FETC International are long-term strategic partners. In the future, the two companies will integrate their software and hardware capabilities and continue to cooperate, with the hope of conquering more Asian, European and American markets.

Advantech has partnered with FETC International to co-create the next generation ETC management platforms in Thailand.