Car fumes, riding the brakes, and covering 5 miles in an hour – all add up to frustration, stress, and ultimately road-rage.

Transportation agencies can now watch their toll revenues skyrocket – which also translates into better infrastructure, fewer greenhouse gasses and less wear and tear on vehicles.. Let’s hit the road to value!

There’s nothing quite like starting your day with a little bumper-to-bumper traffic. And let’s face it, with our hectic schedules it’s not always easy to carpool with enough riders to legally use the carpool lane.

Being stuck in traffic causes head-pounding anger and select four-letter words around the globe.  Many have just accepted this as a part of their daily routine: the mind numbing congestion of their commutes.  Countries first introduced carpool lanes to address this problem , but they have proved to be quite ineffective at reducing congestion because they cannot be effectively enforced.

Carpool lanes are notorious for being full of violators.  In busy metropolitan areas, the majority of cars driving in them don’t meet the minimum passenger requirement, with some drivers going to extremes to cheat the system, using photographs, dummies or dolls as their “passengers.”  This trend is skyrocketing because congestion is getting worse and there is little to no enforcement; and, with most states lacking the funds to enforce these lanes, the problem is only getting worse.

Now, states are solving  this problem by by converting their carpool lanes into toll lanes that charge a variable toll based on the number of vehicle occupants.  This has the potential to be a great solution; however, there’s been a lack of supporting technology.  States still need a way to count the number of people in a car because self-reporting transponders don’t eliminate the cheating problem.

Step on that gas pedal.  It’s time for traffic to flow freely on the world’s congested highways thanks to Vehicle Occupancy Detection Corporation (VODC).  Our product is helping people avoid the frustration of traffic congestion entirely.  We’re making daily commutes enjoyable and completely eliminating carpool lane cheats – a problem that’s existed for over 3 decades – by automatically counting the number of people in a vehicle and recording its license plate.  Utilizing unique, error-free camera and imaging technology to get the job done, cities and states around the world now have the traffic solution they’ve been waiting for.

Thanks to our innovation, governments can now get the most out of their existing infrastructure by inviting single occupant drivers to use carpool lanes legally.  Drivers can now enter these new toll lanes and pay a voluntary toll based on the number of occupants – while city and state leaders can now track and bill drivers more accurately than ever before.  With processes and billing already in place, they can tap into another revenue stream without having to make any major changes.

We’re flipping the script on the traditional ways that cities and states regulate carpool lanes and – to a grander extent – manage their traffic.

We aren’t the first ones to attempt to capitalize on existing infrastructure and get the most from carpool lanes.  While preceding technologies had the right idea, they’ve failed to deliver efficient solutions.  Primarily, they’ve taken the form of cameras that utilize visible and shortwave infrared spectrums to attempt to identify the number of people in a car.  However, this technology’s failed for a number of reasons.  Most notably, they lack the ability to distinguish a human being from any other similar-sized object, leaving the door is open for cheaters.  This leads to the use of dummies, fake babies, and a multitude of other “creative” attempts to mimic a person.

At VODC, we’re utilizing infrared too – but we’re doing it the right way.  The heart of our technology lies in the way that certain shortwave infrared wavelengths reflect off oxygen-rich, iron-carrying red blood cells – or hemoglobin – at differing rates.  By strategically placing our product within existing infrastructure, it floods every vehicle with these very safe shortwave wavelengths upon passing by and takes two photos of each.  The images are then superimposed onto each other and read by the VODC system to discriminate human skin from pets, dummies, photos, and other impostors.  Then, we tie in big data – providing all of this information in real time, which can be instantly used by regulators to make tolling decisions.

The specialized wavelengths that our technology produces…

After an extremely successful trial, our team currently sits in a great place – with potential customers from around the world eager to adopt our technology.  As we move forward with fundraising and growing our company, we’re reminded of what got us here.  Here are a handful of our top accomplishments to date:

Our technology’s base model was first tested on San Rafael, California’s Richmond Bridge in April 2012.

In August 2014, we conducted our first large tech trial in “the belly of the beast” – Los Angeles.  When all was said and done, our product reached a 96% accuracy rate.

Caltrans emailed us stating their need for 4,000 units.  Singapore wants our products to monitor all of their national borders.  South Korea wants to use our products for their highways.  We’ve even had interest from companies like Siemens who are already looking to purchase our company.

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, featured our technology during his opening address at Oracle Open World as his example of “the future of computing”.  Xerox’s former group president, who was responsible for their efforts into vehicle occupancy detection, quit Xerox and became our interim CEO.

Given the highly specialized nature of our technology, our custom components are manufactured at different plants and assembled in-house.

Don’t forget to request access to our profile’s private side for more info on our future development plan!

The VODC vision was originally crafted by Founder and Acting CEO Kenneth Brown, who turned his utter disdain for traffic into a legitimate business venture.  While making weekly round trips from San Francisco to LA, Kenneth quickly realized a traffic status quo that was in desperate need of improvement.  Using his gifted eye for uncovering tech solutions, he laid the foundation for the product, hooked up with some key IP players, and built a technology that’s sure to innovate the world of traffic.

Kenneth is VODC’s lead investor and its current acting CEO.  As we continue to search for a proven CEO, he’s supported on the technology end by these two executives:

Professor John Tyrer, Lead Inventor/CTO – Dr. Tyrer is one of the most respected figures in the world when it comes to lasers and laser safety, having been a go-to source for governments and companies for over 3 decades.  He spearheads all things technology and development for our team.

Leon Lobo, Co-Inventor – Dr. Lobo is a laser and infrared expert himself and the perfect complement to Dr. Tyrer.  He’s currently a Strategic Business Development Manager at the National Physical Laboratory in England.