CALIFORNIA:Golden Gate ET goes well

Mary Currie of the bridge says the impact of ET on toll plaza throughput has been “incredible.” Backups have almost disappeared, as compared with 5 to 20min waits with all-manual tolling. ET is therefore very popular with customers and applications for transponders are running at 300/day. Bridge plans had provided for reaching 35% ET usage after a year rather than in just over 4 months.

The GG Bridge has had no serious staging problem. It has 12 lanes at the toll plaza, one of which is used for HOV, making 11 real toll lanes for 4 travel lanes (in the peak hour 4/2 lane configuration). It opened July 13 with a single ET-only toll lane, which was a major factor in encouraging customers to obtain transponders. Then on Oct 3 it opened a second ET-only lane during the rush hour. This was done unannounced, Curie says. There may have been some slight increase in queuing for manual-payers, but it was within the day to day variations and the increase in transponders quickly made up for the removal of a manual lane.

The ET-only lanes are signed for 5mph (8km/hr) as in the northeast US. Throughput has been over 1300 veh/lane/hr vs 535 in the manual lanes.

The Bridge is planning to encourage the continued switch to ET now by discontinuing sales of the traditional commuter ticket books Jan 1. These provide a 33c discount on a $3 toll, or $2.67. From the startup of ET it has given the same $2.67 rate to transponder users, but as of July 1, 01 it will discontinue this discount and bill ET users the same $3 as cash-payers pay. Tickets were used by about 35% of motorists before ET started. The Bridge says that it is gaining the benefits of cost-savings with ET but that they do not add up to 33c/transaction.

The bridge is paying quite a high price for transponders – $33/each in batches of 15k from Amtech/TransCore. It could have bought them more economically by joint purchasing with Caltrans or the TCA in southern California but might have had less control over supply. Sirit of Toronto has supplied most of the transponders and ET readers in use in California.

Currie says the ET system at the Bridge has worked well from the beginning. Blow-throughs – people who drive through the ET-only lanes without a transponder – are below one percent, not much different from the number who do that to toll collectors. First time violators are treated as people who mistakenly used the lane, and are sent a warning letter, a request for the toll, and a transponder application form.

BACKRGOUND: The GGB was one of the pioneers of electronic tolling, carrying out many experiments with several different systems of transponders and readers from as early as 1972. (The other active early experimenter was PANYNJ.) GGB was ready to proceed with a deployment in 1990, and its board had budgeted $1m for preliminary design and procurement efforts, but the legislature Sept 90 passed SB-1523 requiring Caltrans to lay down statewide standards for ET, which forced GGB to defer procurement. Caltrans adopted a Lawrence Livermore Labs/Texas Instruments standard later made law as Title 21. While the GGB watched Caltrans own procurement problems, it was able to execute a rather smooth introduction of ET from 1998 on.

Its advantages over Caltrans: (1) a much simpler decisionmaking process within a smaller, more focussed toll agency (2) the assistance of veteran toll consultants at Traffic Technologies Inc (Stan Weiss) with experience of several major startups (especially PANYNJ) helping the GG bridge prepare specs and supervising the work of the contractor, whereas Caltrans relied entirely on inhouse staff none of whom had done a ET startup (3) a solid systems contractor in TDC/InTrans versus a contractor MFS/Adesta constantly on the brink of financial collapse.

The GGB has annual average daily 115k/vehs (41.9m/yr) ranging between weekdays 120k and weekends and holidays 104k. Traffic peaked at 43.9m (120k AADT) in 1989-90 and declined to 40.7m in the mid-90s. This was associated with an increase of the toll from $2 to $3 (cars) in July 91 and also with the rapid growth of new jobs in Marin and Sonoma counties north of the bridge where GGB commuters tend to live. Since then however there has been some recovery of traffic, perhaps associated with the vibrant economy of downtown SF and Silicon Valley, as well as some reverse commute, northward in the mornings.

The GGB operates reversible lanes, allowing 4/2 lane operations in the morning, 2/4 lanes PM peak and 3/3 operations other times. It uses simple lane delineator markers that a pickup truck crew thrusts into (or pulls out of) sockets stuck on the bridge deck. The lanes on the bridge (opened 1937) are very narrow (62'/6 = 10’4" or 3.15m each) and the bridge has a 45mph (72km/hr) posted speed limit. It introduced tolling southbound-only in Oct 1968, being one of the first major US crossings to go to one-direction tolling. HOV3s go toll-free.

Toll revenues are presently $60m/yr, with toll profits consumed in subsidies to the ferry and bus services run by the bridge authority. A creation of the state of California it is formally the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. (Contact Mary Currie 415 257 4548 www.goldengate.org)