Sparring Over Transponder Codes

Emerging transponder technology has allowed truckers to bypass highway weigh stations, but it has also generated a dispute over the ownership of the signals these devices produce.

HELP Inc., a nonprofit corporation that controls a for-profit transponder program called PrePass, said that the Oregon Green Light Program, a state-backed service administered by Science Applications International Corp., obtained PrePass transponder codes and allowed those drivers to operate within Oregon’s program without asking permission to do so.

In a letter to the Oregon Department of Transportation Dec. 10, HELP Inc. said the state “acted peremptorily and misappropriated HELP transponders . . . without negotiating an interoperability agreement, and without obtaining HELP permission.”

The letter asked Oregon to immediately stop using PrePass codes and laid down measures for the state to follow to assure compliance. One provision directs the Oregon Department of Transportation to notify HELP Inc. of the specific actions it has taken to comply with the request. HELP Inc. set a deadline of Jan. 5 for Oregon to respond.

Gregg Dal Ponte, Deputy Director or ODOT’s Motor Carrier Transportation Branch, said the letter was forwarded to the Oregon Department of Justice for response.

The department “is evaluating the merits of the letter, and until they have given a determination I would probably be prudent not to speak to the particulars of the letter,” Mr. Dal Ponte said.