ATMS, Tollomatics and now ACMs

In the toll trade in America it’s not the electronic toll lanes but the coin machine lanes that are called “Automatic.” 45 years ago the first toll in the world was taken by an automatic coin machine (ACM.) The first coin throw happened on NJ’s Garden State Parkway (GS Pkwy) in 1953, according to Al Palmer an industry veteran, now operating a modest consulting business Palmer and Associates out of Camarillo CA, while also running up 5,000mi/mth searching out records of old toll roads for a history of North American turnpikes that he’s working on.

Two companies Taller & Cooper of Brooklyn for whom Palmer worked, and Grant Money Meter of Providence RI, each provided test machines to the GS Pkwy. The tests were conducted at the Fairlawn ramp plazas, one company’s machine on either side. Both worked about equally well, Palmer recalls, and the first production model machines were installed at the Bergen and Union mainline plazas of the busy northern NJ pike. They spread its length in the next two years while ACMs were also installed on the Chicago Skyway, and the Boston end of the Massachusetts Turnpike. By the mid-60s they were on the Kentucky system (since de-tolled) and Oklahoma and were being installed here and there all over the country.

The secret to the success of these coin machines was efficiently handling thrown coins. Earlier efforts to apply coin-in-the-slot technology from the vending and ticket issuing business failed. Taller & Cooper’s principal business was selling fare machines for buses and they were helped in designing a workable ACM by already having ability to build gear that handled coins in a lurching, bumping bus, Palmer says.

They were known in the trade as Tollomatics first, but that was a brand name, so the generic name become Automatic Toll Machines (ATMs). But when the banks came out with Automatic Teller Machines in the late 1970s the acronym ATM was regarded as confusing so ‘Coin’ was substituted to produce a new distinctive acronym ACM.

TransCore bought the rights from Cubic to the last of the electromechanical ACMs that trace their ancestry back to the inventors Taller & Cooper and Grant. Rugged machines they still provide good service at many toll lanes around the country. But they are gradually being replaced by a new generation of equipment that is slightly faster, is easier to program and better at distinguishing slugs and foreign coins.

TransCore acquired the Australian toll equipment company TSTI in 1996. Its ACM is offered by TransCore in competition with other modern electronic designs – from CS Route (TDC in the US), Ascom Trindel and Mitsubishi. The electronics and finer magnetic sensing of metal content are said to allow faster more accurate identification and counting of coins in the new generation equipment. Ascom Trindel claims to have the most rugged machine in an all-stainless steel model. The coin wheel previously had to be of non-magnetic material – often a plastic – to allow the coins magnetic characteristics to be accurately assessed with magnetic coils. But the Ascom model has apparently beaten the problem of discerning coin magnetic properties against the background of stainless.

We’ve heard the new Japanese and Australian ACMs badmouthed, as being very high on maintenance. The composite or plastic coin wheels are said to wear very rapidly and to be more trouble and work than the older electromechanical ACMs. The French machines got better reviews in our unscientific survey. The huge mix of different coins in Europe and their higher denomination gave manufacturers there the most incentive to harness new technologies to ACMs, and they now seem to be the market leaders. (Contacts: Al Palmer 805 484 4308 mrtolls@aol.com; Kris Wuestefeld TDS/CS Route 516 484 3333; Eric Pelve, Ascom Trindel 770 368 2003/203, Nigel Jones TransCore Australia 61 7 3274 3199 njones@saic.com.au; Ichiro Arikawa, Mitsubishi 212 397-6113)