Traffic Service Position System No. 1: Station Signaling and Announcement Subsystem: Hardware for Automated Coin Toll Service

The new functions needed in TSPS for Automated Coin Toll Service are provided by the newly designed Station Signaling and Announcement Subsystem (SSAS). SSAS delivers voice announcements to customers at coin stations and responds to the coin deposit signals generated at the coin stations. SSAS can be described from two perspectives, that of a coin toll customer and that of the TSPS processor. From the coin toll customer's viewpoint, it should sound and react the same as or better than the human operators the customer is accustomed to. From the standpoint of the TSPS processor, it operates as an "intelligent peripheral," using the existing instruction and data buses. In response to TSPS instructions, it constructs announcements to request and acknowledge coin deposits. It keeps track of each customer's coin deposits and then reports the amount of the completed deposit to the processor, which then sets up the call. If the customer does not deposit enough coins, SSAS delivers requests for the balance, or finally sends a time-out 1225