Recently, Tönnjes International Group, in conjunction with KATHREIN Solutions GmbH, introduced IDeREADER InRoad, a manhole cover with integrated RFID technology for electric vehicle identification. By installed RFID technology in the manhole instead of gantries, federal and local governments can enjoy possible savings.

It’s a fascinating idea, and makes sense as Tönnjes International Group has a long history as manufacturer and supplier of vehicle licence plates and related products dating back to the early 1960s.

Today, the Tönjes family, who are still majority shareholders today, have grown their business from producing number plates from their factory in Delmenhorst, Germany, to become the leading manufacturer and supplier of vehicle licence plates worldwide. Tönnjes International Group currently manufactures and supplies vehicle licence plates in more than 50 countries and exports its products to over 100 countries.

Jochen Betz, managing director, Tönnjes International Group, noted that Tönnjes considers licence plates the “passport of the vehicle,” and to underline its character of a national document, Tönnjes since the beginning developed security features to be integrated into the licence plate or added as additional production and solutions to ensure the identity of a vehicle once it is registered cannot be tampered with or cloned.

“With the development of passive UHF RFID chips (RAIN RFID), Tönnjes developed in 2009 the first aluminium licence plate with RAIN RFID – our IDePLATE,” Betz observed. “In the following years, Tönnjes added RAIN RFID also to its windscreen (IDeSTIX) and headlamp tag (IDeSTIX Headlamp Tag) products and used cryptographic RAIN RFID chips in its governmental portfolio.

“Today, Tönnjes provides RAIN RFID and NFC enabled IDePLATEs, IDeSTIX windshield and IDeSTIX headlamp tags in compliance with IEC/ISO 180063 to various governmental customers for national EVI projects,” Betz added.

Betz noted that Tönnjes focuses on national governments, which see the benefit to integrate RAIN RFID in the vehicle registration process to provide a secure vehicle identifier for all registered vehicles which can subsequently be used to enable automatic law enforcement, tolling, parking and similar solutions requiring the secure identification of moving or standing vehicles. It can further be used to simplify the registration process as validations stickers become obsolete when the information can be stored on the RAIN RFID or NFC chip.

“In emerging and developing countries, these applications are mainly around law enforcement to ensure compliance of vehicle owners and get reliable data for future infrastructure planning,” Betz added. In industrial countries the focus is more on the use of RAIN RFID for smart city applications and road user charging such as tolling or congestion charging.”

Betz noted that Tönnjes has been active in the manufacture and supply of vehicle licence plates since 1960 and understands the requirements of national governments and road transport authorities when it comes to vehicle registration and vehicle identification for enforcement purposes.

“Our group has accompanied many national roll-outs when complete national vehicle fleets needed to be re-registered and fitted with new vehicle number plates,” said Betz. “In most of these cases Tönnjes has acted as the service provider to government for the fulfilment, i.e. production, supply and distribution.

Betz pointed out that adding RAIN RFID is a natural progression to enable electronic vehicle identification to aid road transport and enforcement authorities to automize the identification and verification of vehicle identify and to eliminate cloned and fake plates which result in tax avoidance and ultimately in a cost to the public.

“Our RAIN RFID solutions are proven and tested and all our products withstand the typical use case of licence plates and windscreen and headlamp tag applications as we work according to various national or international standards since decades,” Betz added. “We focus on local production and distribution and act as service provider to the road transport and enforcement authorities.”

Betz noted that innovation and service keep Tönnjes at the forefront of its field.

“With several decades of servicing local governments with products and services for vehicle registration and identification, Tönnjes has a vast experience in providing local service and support,” said Betz. “We invest in local manufacturing and distribution sites, which in turn service the local road transport authorities. This significantly shortens our turnaround times and enables us to react quickly to changes in demand.

“Innovation has been a key driver for our success,” he continued. “Innovation in production technology enables local production in central and decentral locations – from raw materials to finished products. Innovation has also driven us to be the only provider of an aluminium license plate with integrated RAIN RFID chip today”.

The innovative strength can also be seen in the large number of patents and IP rights. Just recently, Tönnjes was named one of the most innovative medium-sized companies 2024 in Germany in the automotive sector.

Integrating RFID technology in a manhole cover is the latest innovation. Betz noted that the biggest challenge for any country when planning to introduce an EVI solution is reading infrastructure. However, only with a good infrastructure can the authorities can benefit from all the advantages and applications which EVI offers.

“Traditionally, focus has been on highways only (tolling),” Betz pointed out. “As we want to bring the benefits of EVI also to smart city applications and enforcement in general, the decrease in infrastructure cost is a key enabler for EVI projects.

“Embedding a reader and antenna for RAIN RFID in a manhole cover significantly reduces the cost and enables such installations in more locations, e.g. on/off ramps to highways, country roads, intersections etc.,” Betz added. “The IDeREADER InRoad is the perfect device to install RAIN RFID readers in multiple locations at low cost. We already have interest in the concept from authorities who are currently studying the introduction of an EVI solution but also from industries which want to track vehicles for different reasons.”

Betz said that Tönnjes strongly believes that RAIN RFID is the solution for any vehicle related identification application.

“As Tönnjes is the leading supplier in secure vehicle identification, it is only natural to add RAIN RFID to our products such as IDePLATE and IDeSTIX,” Betz concluded. “With the increasing drive to automatize the secure identification of vehicles also in moving traffic and to enable special rights for electric vehicles, the road transport authorities must remain custodians of the vehicles identification and enable these applications for the public.”