Automated E-Tolling System using RFID Technology, Steganography & Cloud Computing A Zimbabwean Perspective

Automated e-tolling system will help collect road tax automatically and efficiently in Zimbabwe. In this paper RFID technology is used for vehicle identification, steganography is used to preserve privacy on the communication between RFID tag and reader to put an end to tag tracking problem. The tag information is hidden in another text using zero width Unicode characters steganography at the point of vehicle registration. Cloud computing is used for authentication of RFID tags and hosting of the database and the system. When a vehicle approaches the toll gate, sensors will detect the presence of a vehicle, the RFID reader mounted on the tollgate reads the information that is on the RFID tag mounted on the windscreen of the vehicle and sends the information to a cloud server for tag authentication. This tag is given by Central Vehicle Registry department upon vehicle registration which links it to details stored on the cloud database. During vehicle registration an account is assigned to the vehicle owner that he/she has to maintain a healthy balance. After authentication the vehicle is classified using its weight recorded upon registration. If account balance is adequate the gate opens for the vehicle to pass. In case of inadequate account balance or no tag, the vehicle is directed to the tollbooth that does manual transactions.