SAIC nabs highway toll system deal

Science Applications International Corp won a $6.6 million contract from the Illinois Tollway to assist in a systemwide conversion to a barrier-free electronic toll collection system, the company has announced.

Under the contract, SAIC's Security and Transportation Technology business unit will provide equipment to upgrade the tollway's violation enforcement system.

The system enforces toll fees by capturing images of car and truck license plates that drive through tolls without paying.

The Illinois Tollway includes more than 180 toll lanes with license plate image capture, coupled with SAIC-provided optical character recognition capability, to process more than tens of thousands of violations each day.

The company's violation enforcement system can capture images of license plates of vehicles traveling up to 100 mph and is installed in more than 650 toll lanes throughout the United States.

SAIC has more than 45,000 employees and annual sales of $7.2 billion and ranks No. 3 on Washington Technology's 2005 Top 100 list, which measures federal IT prime contracting revenue.