MASS PIKE TransCore to do $75m ETC job

MASS PIKE

TransCore to do

$75m ETC job

TransCore has got the country’s second largest electronic tolling (ET) job — a $75m contract to design, build, maintain and operate for 10 years an ET system for the Massachusetts Turnpike. The job involves about 90 ET lanes and upgrades of equipment at all 250 toll lanes. Like Illinois which is scrapping an orphan AT/Comm system just a few years after it was installed, so the Mass pike will be scrapping a Texas Instruments backscatter system for Mark IV active transponders and readers. The TI, Calif-style tags were installed in the new Ted Williams Tunnel to the airport in 1995.

Like the $500m contract in New Jersey the Massachusetts job has been highly contentious. MFS installed the Ted Williams tunnel system and believed it had a contract for finishing the rest of the turnpike system. But the Republicans turned out the Democratic appointees on the turnpike board, and wanted to change everything, and last year made a sudden request for proposals for starting over again. Amtech has been engaged in litigation against the Mass pike after it was eliminated early from the bidding process. AT/Comm also did not qualify. That left the competition for the project as TransCore vs Lockheed. Lockheed’s bid was about 50% higher than TransCore’s, we’re told.

Those non-toll revs again

In line with the Mass pike’s effort to gain revenue from non-toll sources so that it can phase out tolling on politically sensitive parts of the Turnpike, TransCore will seek to generate revenues from sponsoring various other uses for the transponders. Parking access, traffic flow information and real time routing advice are being talked about. (Such talk is not new. New will be any substantial revenues.)

TransCore will build a customer service center and Bank of Boston will do financial processing and may issue some kind of smartcard for use with the ET account.

The Mass pike rather than the state DOT will run the operations of the massive Central Artery tunnel system presently under construction, though there are no plans to collect tolls on it. The present administration has taken a demagogic populist line against tolls suggesting it wants to be rid of them. Under plans announced last year tolls would be eliminated outside the Boston area from MA-128/I-95 to the New York border by 2007. Some intermediate trips in the west of the state are already free and several low toll ramp plazas have been knocked down. On the positive side it has cut costs within the Turnpike by more than 10%.

TransCore’s chief executive John Foote who normally lives in San Diego is living in Boston for the duration of construction of the Mass pike ETC system which is supposed to be operational on the urban stretch called the Boston extension (MA-128/I-95 east to I-93 in downtown Boston) by later this year. The whole construction is supposed to be finished in 99.

Real partnership

Foote told us: “This is a great contract for us. Having to maintain and operate the system means we are in a real partnership. And it is more than tolls. We plan to get involved with the turnpike in a range of associated services and revenue raising activities.”

The Mass pike operates about 216km (135mi) of toll road. The 4-lane section that runs east-west across the state in the rural section uses a ticket system but the urban section in the Boston area which is 6-lanes, and for a short stretch 8-lanes, uses point tolling. The pike garners about $180m in annual revenue. Its reports show that at end 96 it had over $600m outstanding bonds, and this is being added to greatly in order to raise money for the the non-revenue generating $11b Central Artery tunnel (I-93) system that is under construction. The accounts show interest payments of a bewilderingly small $4m, suggesting other state revenues are carrying the bonds. The logic, they say, is all Boston politics. (Bob Bliss Mass pike 617 248 2823, John Foote TransCore 508 460 6113)