Kathrein Solutions, the German RFID hardware manufacturer, said on 6 November 2026 that its readers and antennas are running the automatic vehicle identification layer of the multi-lane free-flow toll system on the Rodoanel Norte, the northern arc of the ring road around São Paulo. The installation uses RRU 7800 RFID readers with WideRange 40 degree PRO antenna units, and was built by Movyon, the Italian intelligent transport systems integrator.
Multi-lane free flow, usually shortened to MLFF, does away with the toll plaza altogether. Readers and antennas sit on a gantry above the open carriageway and identify each vehicle’s tag as it passes underneath at normal highway speed. That moves the hard part of the job onto the RFID: a fraction of a second of usable read window per vehicle, each read attributed to the right vehicle in the right lane when traffic runs three or four abreast, and the same performance held when the field is crowded with tags. Kathrein’s announcement makes the point that precise read results and high system availability matter most at speed and under load.
“Movyon’s deep expertise in toll collection and ITS integration, combined with the reliable performance of our RFID hardware, helps enable an efficient free-flow infrastructure in challenging traffic environments,” said Stoyan Iliev, chief technology officer at Kathrein Solutions.
The road, and when it opened
Kathrein’s release says the first section of the Rodoanel Norte has opened but gives no date. Brazilian press reports put the inauguration on 22 December 2025, with the stretch opening to traffic the following day, 23 December 2025, and free-flow tolling live from the first day. That first stretch runs between the Presidente Dutra and Fernão Dias highways; reported lengths vary between 24 and 26 km, with 24 km the figure most often given. The complete northern section is about 44 km and crosses the municipalities of São Paulo, Guarulhos and Arujá. Construction started in 2013 and stalled from 2018, so the opening came roughly 12 to 13 years after work began.
The concession detail likewise comes from Brazilian reporting rather than from Kathrein. The contract was signed in August 2023 and carries about BRL 3.4 billion of investment, the concessionaire is Via Appia Concessões, and tag payments on the open section are handled through the Sem Parar scheme. Kathrein’s release names neither company.
The protocol, and the band the tags use
Kathrein says the RRU 7800 readers run a protocol it calls “ARTEFATO PA SJ 5511”. That designation could not be verified against any independent source. It reads like a São Paulo state tag specification, which would point to ARTESP, the regulator for the state’s concessioned highways, but that is an inference, not a confirmed fact.
What is firmly on the record is the band Brazilian toll tags work in. São Paulo moved its toll tags off 5.8 GHz and onto UHF at 915 MHz, built on the federal SINIAV tag definition: sales of 5.8 GHz tags were banned in the state from March 2013 and the replacement deadline was extended to 2015. A Paraná regulator resolution adopting the same approach specifies 915 to 928 MHz with a 915 MHz centre frequency and requires ANATEL certification. ARTESP Portaria nº 81 of 5 July 2024 sets the technical parameters for operating free-flow systems on São Paulo’s concessioned highways, and is based on federal CONTRAN Resolution 984 of 2022. Kathrein publishes no datasheet for the RRU 7800 and states no frequency range for it, so none is given here.
The companies, and what is still to come
Movyon is the technology arm of the Italian motorway group Autostrade per l’Italia. It started in 2009 as Autostrade Tech, the group’s research and innovation spin-off, and was rebranded Movyon in 2021; its work covers tolling, traffic and safety management, smart road and smart city systems. Kathrein Solutions builds industrial UHF RFID readers and antennas, and the RRU 7800 belongs to that range.
About 20 km of the northern section remains to be built. At the time of the December 2025 opening the outstanding work was expected in the second half of 2026, with no firm completion date published. Brazil separately has a national electronic vehicle identification programme, SINIAV, on the statute book since 2006 but never rolled out nationally and carrying no current deadline. Nothing in Kathrein’s release ties the Rodoanel Norte to it, although São Paulo’s own UHF tag definition was built on the SINIAV one. Further deployments of this kind sit in our road tolls coverage.
