Vehicle identification system and method

A vehicle identification system comprising a central station, a roadside reader for wirelessly communicating with radio tags carried by vehicles, a mapping unit connected to the reader, and a correlation unit connected to the mapping unit;

• the reader being part or member of a lane controller which has an interface connected to an input of the central station via a connection;
• the reader having a first output which is connected to the interface and a second output which is connected to the mapping unit;
• and
• the mapping unit having an output which is also connected to the interface;
• wherein a first tag is configured to wirelessly transmit messages according to a first protocol to the reader, each message comprising a unique first-protocol identification of the tag;
• wherein a second tag is configured to wirelessly transmit messages according to a second protocol to the reader, each message comprising a unique second-protocol identification of the tag;
• wherein the correlation unit is configured to correlate second-protocol tag identifications to first-protocol tag identifications from a reserved subset of first-protocol tag identifications that are not used for tags deployed in vehicles;
• wherein the reader is configured to forward first-protocol messages to the central station and to detect second-protocol messages and forward the detected second-protocol messages to the mapping unit;
• wherein the mapping unit is configured to generate a new first-protocol message and forward this message to the central station upon receiving a second-protocol message from the reader by
• extracting the second-protocol tag identification from the second-protocol message,
• retrieving that first-protocol tag identification that correlates to the extracted second-protocol tag identification from the correlation unit,
• generating said new first-protocol message by copying information from said second-protocol message according to a predetermined mapping between the second protocol and the first protocol while replacing the second-protocol tag identification by the retrieved first-protocol tag identification, and
• forwarding the generated new first-protocol message to the central station;
• and
• wherein the central station is configured to receive and store first-protocol messages from the reader as well as new first-protocol messages from the mapping unit and to identify a vehicle by means of the first-protocol tag identification therein.