Advantech (TWSE: 2395), a global leader in Industrial IoT, joined hands with the smart transportation expert Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co, Ltd (FETC) International to co-create the next generation of electronic toll collection (ETC) management platforms. The new platform helps operations and maintenance personnel resolve problems swiftly, shortens trouble-shooting times, and reduces operational costs. The two industry giants targeted the Southeast Asian region as their springboard to the global market and the first successful implementation was recently completed in Thailand.

Taiwan's highway multi-lane free-flow ETC system was launched in 2014. It is the world's largest highway ETC system and has made Taiwan the first country in the world to switch to all electronic multi-lane free-flow tolling system. This highly integrated open standard intelligent transportation solution is a grand assemblage of Internet of Things (IoT), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), intelligent transportation technology, 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 Taiwan's intelligent transportation industry.

According to Dr. Allan Yang, CTO of Advantech, "Advantech has been cooperating with FETC since 2013. The integrated smart transportation solution leverages FETC's business intelligence logic and Advantech's ICT strength. By utilizing Advantech's local sales and service networks in Southeast Asia, the two companies were able to explore the Southeast Asian market together and develop the next generation ETC management platform for the Thai project - co-creating a model application of digital transformation in the intelligent transportation area. The platform is based on Advantech's industrial application software, M2I/MachineUnite (Machine-to-Intelligence, M2I), which fulfilled FETC International's need for equipment integration, equipment management, and data visualization. The platform also assisted maintenance operations and shortened trouble-shooting times," said Dr. Yang.

Mr. Kenny Chen, Vice President of FETC International, said that the cooperation with Advantech on the WISE-PaaS platform Thai project is of strategic significance. "Since the ETC system uses thousands of IoT sensors to ensure non-stop, high performance system operations, it is necessary to monitor the health status of the facilities in each toll gantry 24/7/365. Advantech's WISE-PaaS provided a visualized smart platform for data fusion and collaborative management. Combined with FETC's decades of accumulated development and technical knowledge in the ETC field, it not only enabled quick and efficient views of all highway toll gantries, but it also allowed inspections of each sensor in a 3D or VR scene, so that operations and maintenance personnel could carry out timely actions to eliminate issues and quickly solve problems, reducing maintenance costs and shortening trouble-shooting times," said Mr. Chen.

Advantech's M2I/MachineUnite is a one-stop development tool based on Advantech's WISE-PaaS industrial IoT cloud platform. In response to the needs of different markets and different mast systems from FETC International, M2I/MachineUnite can quickly create and configure visualized dashboards required by customers, establish a digital smart control center using defined templates, and obtain real-time traffic information. After the equipment is connected to the Internet, the control center can easily monitor the operation of all devices through a virtual 3D scene and send out notifications if any abnormalities occur. In addition, since the ETC system was mostly sub-contracted out by private enterprises, FETC International could also use the diverse deployment profiles used by the WISE-PaaS public and private clouds to provide flexible services according to different needs.

In recent years, Advantech has been actively promoting the development of an industrial IoT ecosystem, hoping to create a brand new AIoT service that is interconnected with industry by leveraging its strategy of core competencies and joint co-creation with local domain-focused solution integrators (DFSI). On this project, Advantech and FETC International's collaboration is the perfect model of such a strategy in practice. In order to further realize the promotion and application of the solution, Advantech will use a dedicated WISE-PaaS platform team in Southeast Asia to target countries that FETC International focuses on, such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The team has carried out strategic business development plans with local ecosystem partners and signed contracts with 12 WISE-PaaS VIP customers. In addition, the recently completed VinGroup smart e-bus project in Vietnam will also bring a fresh stream of publicity to the next generation of ETC system management platforms. Advantech and FETC International are long-term strategic partners. Going forward, the two companies will integrate their software and hardware capabilities and continue to cooperate, hoping to win more Asian, European, and American market.

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

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ADVANTECH Co. Ltd. published this content on 09 November 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 09 November 2021 10:02:12 UTC.