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East Coast toll authorities are eager to develop a national system for electronic toll collection, but they face a long road ahead.

There has been little resistance to the Department of Transportation’s recent decision to promote a national standard for transponders and other short-range radio communications equipment.

There has been little resistance to the Department of Transportation’s recent decision to promote a national standard for transponders and other short-range radio communications equipment.

A national standard for transponders moved closer to reality last week when the Department of Transportation announced it would promote a “sandwich protocol” for guiding the design of the technology.

The federal Department of Transportation will move ahead with promoting a "sandwich protocol" for a national standard to guide design of technology using Dedicated Short-Range Communications.

The debate over whether the federal government should adopt a special radio frequency for intelligent transportation systems may seem pretty ho-hum, but the issue has far-reaching financial and technological implications. The ripple will sweep across trucking as well as equipment manufacturers.

Transponders, the little black boxes in trucks that are essential to electronic vehicle identification and highway-speed clearance at ports of entry, depend on short-range radio communication. There is more than one system on the market, but a single communication standard that would make all transponders “interoperable” has eluded private industry — and the government is under pressure to step in and dictate a solution.