DULLES TOLL ROAD ETC “I Zip Through and Beat the System”

DULLES TOLL ROAD ETC

“I Zip Through and Beat the System”

“I don’t know much about this ITS stuff but I do have a (electronic) toll tag for the Dulles Toll Road, and I know that if I go zipping through the toll plaza at 55mph I don’t get charged.” So spoke Elliot McEntee, president of the National Automated Clearing House Association in opening a session before about 100 people at an ITS America conference on electronic payment systems Feb 10 at the Sheraton Reston, VA, just alongside the toll road. People murmured, and a few laughed. It’s always fun to beat a system, and heck, technology and enforcement are far from perfect. I mentioned it to a couple of people at the conference, and no one discounted what McEntee said as simply made up for the occasion. They thought he was confiding something.

High speed has been known as a possible way to beat ETC, especially some of the type I tags without an amplifying battery. But ETC systems now in use have been tested up to about twice 55mph. And the Dulles corridor has an active transponder system - from Mark IV. McEntee was clearly out for a laugh from the audience but several people thought that maybe the guy did manage to beat the system by speeding through. They thought he might be talking from experience and was indiscreetly mentioning it. After hearing feedback to the effect that maybe the toll road does have a problem registering speeding vehicles, I thought we’d better start asking.

Tom Sines operations manager at Castle Rock which manages the ETC system for the Toll Road and the Greenway was adamant that the system is being maintained to a standard that prevents such evasion, certainly on any kind of repeated basis. Bill Costis the VDOT director of the toll road told us too that the ETC system is working well and that it is adequate to deal with motorists driving at high speeds. Still, both were concerned that someone would say that.

15 to 35mph common

Costis says that most of the traffic using the ETC-only lanes travels at 15 to 35 mph. Motorists issued a toll tag sign an agreement that they will not exceed 10mph through plazas, so VDOT clearly has the power to recall a tag from a speedster.

A small minority, Costis says go through the ETC-only lanes at 50mph and more, and these are “a real safety concern” though there is no difficulty picking up the tag signal. The ETC-only lanes at the mainline plaza mentioned by McEntee are old conventional lanes that have simply been signed and wired for ETC and there is no barrier safety separating the ET-only traffic from vehicles stopping to throw coins or pay a toll collector nearby.

Virginia police actively prosecute people going through at McEntee’s 55mph, Costis says, usually hitting them with a ticket for reckless driving rather than speed as such.

There was some concern at McEntee’s comments. If people think they can beat the toll zooming through it might encourage more people to try. And aggravate safety risks.

But the question remained: Does McEntee really manage to get away without being tolled?

“I was only kidding,” he told us when we tracked him down. “I haven’t tried to go through there at 55mph. I just made that stuff up to get people laughing. I don’t know anything about how it works. I don’t even know if I get charged or not (for all my trips.) I don’t even try to reconcile my statement. I just pay it,” he said.

Well maybe, but it didn’t quite come across like that to many at the conference. And bragging about toll evasion near a toll road may be a bit like making jokes about a bomb in the hearing of the luggage security inspectors at the airport. Plain dumb! Calculated to get people investigating you.

Word is McEntee does travel through the plaza 3 or 4 times a day on average and he is being correctly tolled for those trips, and he’d better darned well not zip through at 55mph or he may find himself in trouble. He told us he lives in Falls Church and works at Herndon (on opposite sides of the toll plaza) so he needs that e-toll tag. Neither Sines nor Costis think McEntee’s remarks very funny. (Contact E McEntee 703 561 1100, Tom Sines 703 707 9096, W Costis 703 383 2700)