Illinois goes a nearly a year without issuing violations notices in backoffice transition

Illinois Tollway has gone for nearly a year now without their violations system operating fully in a difficult back office transition from TransCore to Electronic Transactions Consultants (ETC). A Tollway official says their priorities have been been to get their front end equipment especially open road toll systems working accurately, then to move over to new toll management systems, customer service, with violations processing coming on-line last.

They have been frustrated at the time it is taking to getting violations processing restarted, but it's more important to "do it right than to do it fast," said one official there.

They expect to resume issuing violations notices within several weeks, or "this quarter" the official said. Then a mix of a year's accumulated violations and new ones will be generating violation notices.

New toll systems often start up without violations systems working because technicians have to get the basic electronic tolling working first. And transitions often require certain systems to go down for a while. But to cease issuing violations notices for eleven months seems to us unusual. 

Tollway officials say they don't think violation rates have increased during the eleven months, but until they fully migrate their system and complete the culling "V-tolls" (where the motorist has an account in good standing but the equipment didn't produce a read and they got a camera image) they won't know for sure.

The violation rate in Illinois has not been unusually large in recent years averaging around 4%. But it is such a large system the absolute numbers are staggering - with 2.14m transactions per day that's 85k violations. Over eleven months of not sending violation notices they must have accumulated a backlog of something like 28m violations. (NOTE to USPS: Schedule more hands in Chicago Mail Center in September.)

"Violators are not going to get away with violations of the past year," a Tollway spokesman told us. "The notices are just being delayed because of the transition."

Not all violations are pursued

The Tollway has the legal power to go after every single violation and without any time limit - no statute of limitations. However as a matter of policy they won't go after violations more than two years old.

Also they only issue violation notices on the third violation in two years.

The first two violations they forgive as quite likely unintentional. But the third violation triggers a violation notice on the thinking that this indicates the start of a pattern of deliberate attempts at toll evasion.

The forgive-the-first-two policy might cut the number of accumulated notices needed in half from the 28m to say 14m.

The Tollway would have liked the new violations processing system to have been got working earlier so the backlog could have been reduced, the spokesman said, but it was important not to issue any notices until they were sure the data was correct.

"It is most important to be sure that notices are only going out to true violators."

Incorrect violation notices not only damage public respect for a toll authority but generate large volumes of calls to customer service which can quickly become overwhelming.

TransCore was out by September last and violations notices ceased

The Tollway's contract with previous systems contractor TransCore ended September last year and TransCore's violations processing, along with other systems was taken down at that time. No violations notices have been able to be generated since then.

ETC was very successful in getting front-end systems working smoothly on a tight two year schedule at some 20 mainline plazas converted to highway speed (or open road) electronic tolling. And ETC is continuing to work on converting front-end systems at the cash portions of the toll plazas - a total of about 400 toll lanes, the largest in the US.

However the official says back office "migration" has been "an enormous task" and has been slower than the Tollway would have liked. Some 3 billion transactions have had to be converted to a new system. ETC has had to put in place new systems to cull video tolls accurately from camera images of potential violators.

The Tollway official says that they are not quite ready to begin issuing violations under the new system, but eleven months after the TransCore system went down they are now close to getting a good back office to support the new front end equipment.

The Tollway and ETC both say this is the largest and most complex toll system upgrade yet attempted. That's in part because of the sheer volume of transactions and images but also because several separate systems - cash tolling, transponder tolling, customer service, violations processing - are being fully integrated for the first time. Previous systems were developed as standalone systems and operated separately.

ETC's contract is for $78m for development work, equipment (though some is supplied separately by the Tollway) and five years of support and operations.

An ETC official tells us the Illinois system is unique because many new features have been introduced. They started with a template for an integrated system developed for Texas' two big toll authorities, NTTA and HCTRA, but added many "great ideas" from Illinois Tollway staff.

Previously there were separate databases and separate staff for transponder (I-PASS) issues, and for violations. The new violations processing system is getting major enhancements at both front and back ends. At the front end the images will be improved with greater resolution and finer adjustment. All toll lanes are getting frontal infrared cameras as well as beefed up visual spectrum rear cameras.

In the back end the Tollway will have far more flexibility to manage the issue of notices, and followups and to group notices, and the violations processing and customer service will be brought together and integrated.  That way customer servicer will handle all aspects of a motorists dealings with the Tollway including potential violations.

Thee integration would facilitate a future transition to full cashless tolling in which cameras were used for true video tolling, rather than being an enforcement device.

The Tollway official stresses that the changes in the front end of the system were the first priority. The front-end upgrades have required:
- new Mark IV transponder readers
- SAIC rear video enforcement cameras modernized
- INEX frontal infra-red cameras
- Idris smart in-pavement loops for vehicle detection, tracking, separation and classification
- new lane controllers to integrate these functions and interface with plaza and system servers
- new systems in and over the pavement of the multilane open road toll points

There has also been complete enhancement of:
- the Tollway's host computer system
- violation processing system (VPS)
- customer service centers (CSC)
- maintenance on-line management system (MOMS)
- revenue collection system, and
- revenue collection maintenance system

The official said: "All of this has been going on as the Tollway has seen I-PASS usage rates ramp up to 80 percent average daily, and active transponders grow to more than 3 million as we continue to sell about 7,000 new transponders each week. The new system is revolutionizing the way the Tollway operates and will enable us provide greater benefits and accountability to our customers."

They have now completed "data migration" for the new system which has been "an enormous task, the official says with more than 2 million electronic toll transactions daily - E-ZPass as well as I-Pass.

"The next step was to put the back-end processes in place to cull out the V-tolls (video tolls) and T-tolls (the unique Illinois term for transponder tolls on a good transponder on a bad account) collected through the VPS (violations processing) system. We're current on those processes and will begin issuing violation notices this quarter."

TOLLROADSnews 2007-08-10