PANYNJ to study all-electronic tolling

Some of the busiest toll facilities in America could go cashless if a study and design effort is positive. The Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) has embarked on a two year $9m "study and preliminary design" for all-electronic toll collection. This would mean the elimination of existing toll plazas and their replacement by overhead gantries bearing transponder readers and license plate imaging cameras.

Port Authority Chairman Anthony R. Coscia is quoted: "We must seek creative ways – like all-electronic tolling – to successfully minimize congestion and delays at our crossings and enable the continued growth and prosperity of our regional economy.”

Port Authority Executive Director Anthony E. Shorris said: “We’re all looking for ways to deal with the growth we want without sacrificing the mobility we need. All-electronic tolling may offer us an opportunity to make progress on multiple fronts – not only easing congestion at some of the region’s most stubborn choke points, but also reducing the greenhouse gases released when thousands of cars and trucks idle in toll lanes.”

The study will look at the operational, financial, technological, organizational, institutional, legal and regulatory issues surrounding the switch. It will develop schedules, project costs and preliminary designs for infrastructure, to quote an official announcement.

An RFP will be issued for consultants to conduct the study, but a spokesman says he doesn't have a date for that.

PANYNJ has some of world's busiest crossings

PANYNJ a bistate agency owns the six crossings between the northern New Jersey and New York City. They handle almost 700k vehicles/day and gross $720m in tolls

The George Washington bridge of 14 travel lanes on two levels is the most heavily trafficked major bridge in the world with average daily traffic of 297k. It has 31 toll lanes in three toll plazas tolling eastbound traffic (NJ to NY) only - like all the PANYNJ crossings.

The Lincoln Tunnel consisting of three 2-lane tubes handling 115k veh/day has a 13 toll lane toll plaza, and the Holland Tunnel with 2x2 lanes does 95k veh/day. Its toll plaza has 9 toll lanes.

The Goethals Bridge, PANYNJ's most decrepit linking the New Jersey Turnpike in Elizabeth NJ with the Staten Island Expressway, does 71k veh/day on 4 lanes of barely 3m (10ft) wide with 8 toll lanes. PANYNJ is close to finalizing conceptual design and permitting for a replacement bridge and toll plaza.

The Outerbridge Bridge, Staten Island NY to Perth Amboy NJ does 89k/day with 10 toll lanes. It has two highway speed electronic toll lanes but cash lanes on the side, while the Bayonne Bridge over the entrance to Port Newark does a mere 23k/day through 4 toll lanes tolling one direction.

Highway speed tolling elsewhere

A number of newly built tollroads are already all-electronic doing a similar combination of transponder and video tolling - in a normal multiple lane segment of roadway - without cash collection. The video tolling provides tolling of infrequent users and others without a transponder.

The first major tollroad in North America to be built with cashless highway speed electronic toll collection with transponder and video tolling was 407ETR in Toronto which began tolling mid-Oct 1997.

Transponder-only tolling has been in use on 91 Express lanes since the end of 1995 and on the Westpark Tollway in Houston since May 2004.

The transponder and video tolling combination has been in use on TX121 north of Dallas, Tyler Loop 49 in far northeast Texas and on the Reversible Elevated Lanes in Tampa since late last year.

Singapore was one of the first countries to use transponder-only tolling on a widescale for tollroads and central area tolling.

Melbourne CityLink in Australia and Santiago Chile are huge all-electronic tollroad systems. Toll express lanes in San Diego on I-15, on the Katy Freeway and US290 in Houston, on I-15 in Denver and on I-394 in Minneapolis are transponder-only systems.

London's central area congestion charge is an all-video system while Stockholm's central area charge uses a combination of transponders and video tolling with no cash collection.

Maryland's Inter County Connector now under construction through Montgomer County north of the Beltway will do transponder/video tolling, no cash.

Germany and Austria both toll trucks on their entire motorway systems with transponders and video - in the case of Germany using satellite based location finding units.

Most conversion of existing tollroads, and many new tollroads have highway speed electronic tolling through the middle but maintain cash payment options off to the rightside. Illinois Tollway in the past three years has done a huge version of that - doing highway speed lanes through the middle of all twenty of their mainline toll plazas but keeping cash collection off to the sides. Houston's HCTRA was the first to retrofit that in 1997. North Texas Tollway followed. Orlando has a major program too.

Miami Dade Expressway Authority has adopted an Open Road Tolling Master Plan to eliminate its mainline toll plazas and its many free on-and-off stretches of roadway and replace them with a fairer system that uses all-electronic tolling to toll every segment of their system.

North Texas

North Texas Tolllway Authority in the Dallas area is the next established toll system after Miami Dade to move toward systemwide abolition of established cash collection. At their Dallas North Tollway Plaza #1 (Wycliff) they suspended cash collection early this year because of congestion resulting from construction on either side of the toll plaza. They have had 2x2 lane highway speed tolling through the middle since Apr 21 2001 after a truck with a dumpster lost control and demolished the middle of the toll plaza. Rather than put it back into single slow toll lanes they brought forward plans that were a couple of years from implementation and went to highway speed electronic tolling in the middle.

Early this year with mile long backups from an abrupt merge of highspeed and stop-to-pay traffic due to construction beyond the toll plaza NTTA ceased manning the toll booths going to transponder and video tolling only. The congestion almost completely disappeared. Cash collection may never be reinstated there, according to Rick Herrington of NTTA. The authority is examining a phaseout of cash collection at all their toll plazas. NTTA's board of directors have adopted cashless tolling as a goal and staff are working on a scheduled program. A major concern is to run down the workforce of toll collectors by attrition or job transfers rather than layoffs.

Australia

Melbourne Australia has no cash collection but its tolling is only seven years old. Sydney with a mix of old and new toll facilities, multiple concessionaires plus the state harbor bridge is rapidly moving to abolish cash collection in favor of transponder and video. The state's Sydney Harbour Bridge, nicknamed the coathanger will be perhaps the oldest toll bridge in the world to go cashless. They have been collecting tolls there since March 1932. It carries 160k veh/day on eight lanes.

July 8 this year they end 75 years of cash collection on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and will toll by transponder and video only.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-06-26