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Comment by toephu2 | Hacker News Reader

"Also, Caltrans routinely scans Fastrak transponders silently in non-toll areas to gauge traffic flow."

Wow really? Where exactly? The trackers are not that small and I doubt they are all over 280 or 101 otherwise I would have noticed them by now..

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EzPass toll tags being read outside toll areas is very common through out the tri-state area. The project mahyarm mentioned below is called "Midtown in Motion" where the tags are used to control the traffic light timing dynamically throughout the day (with humans overseeing too). You can find the readers placed usually behind information signs that are mounted on gantries or just plain in the open on traffic lights: https://b-i.forbesimg.com/kashmirhill/files/2013/09/Screen-S...

The other uses for the tag data include generating real time travel time to NYC airports from certain location in the metro area, as well as the data is fed into planning and road maintenance authorities.

Finally related to the article about taking a picture of every car, this is really nothing new as every car that drives into Manhattan has its plate read regardless of which bridge or tunnel you take, and those ALPR's are operated by NYPD... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Brookyn_Bridg...

I've seen those in NYC and don't doubt it, I'm talking about the Bay Area though.

I've seen a video of someone who rewired their transponder in NYC and showed it actually got scanned at every second intersection. You can do something similar with yours. I'm not too worried about it per se, since a camera can do something similar.

I'm pretty sure this is the talk you're thinking of.[0]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxKlFV0chw

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