407ETR opens extra 100 lane-km, builds extra 132 for $175m

407ETR Concession Company has added an extra 100 lane-km along nearly 50km (32mi) of the central section of the tollroad between H401 in Mississauga and H404 in Thornhill due north of central Toronto. Now 4 and 5 lanes each direction for 50km the east-west tollroad spanning the greater Toronto area is one of the highest capacity urban pikes in north America.

The company says it now has built the capacity to support 400k trips a day - about 20% above present traffic of 330k/weekday.

407ETR opened as a much smaller and shorter provincial owned tollroad in the summer of 1997 and began tolling Oct 14 1997. Privatization under a 99 year concession was put in train with competitive bids almost as soon as the road opened. The concessionaire - a single purpose company owned by Cintra (Spain), Macquarie (Australia) and SNC Lavalin (Canada) - has more than doubled the lane-kilometers and traffic.

CEO of the company Antonio de Santiago said today: "We’re proud of our reputation for improving traffic flow before congestion becomes a problem... we’ve opened new lanes ahead of schedule.”

Under the concession contract the company has to avoid any congestion or pricing which that would force traffic onto parallel routes. The company says the opening of the extra lanes is "good news" for other drivers in the greater Toronto area since it will attract extra traffic away from crowded free roads.

The extra lanes are constructed in the central median designed from the beginning to accommodate 5 lanes plus left and right shoulder lanes each direction.

About 9km (5 miles) are now striped for 5 lanes each direction. During the widening another 15.5km (9 miles) had two lanes of pavement plus left shoulder added to the existing three lanes and right shoulder. But only one of the two extra lanes is needed for now so this stretch of roadway is striped for 4 lanes. To convert it to 5 lanes they will only need to restripe.

Negotiated contracts

The 132 lane-km just built cost the company $176m (C$180m @C$1.00=97c) or $1.33m/lane-km ($2.15m/lane-mile.) A construction manager at 407ETR told us the company gets the best value for construction by negotiating a contract with known local companies.

"We can choose not only the companies but we make sure we choose the project managers and senior engineers we'll have. We work with people we know. The freedom to negotiate a contract gives us much more control over the project and much better value than the public sector can get with its requirement for sealed bids. We can move very quickly working together."

407ETR have developed a pattern in which they do bridge work one construction season and pavement the next.

The widening work just completed involved:
- 375k cubic metres of excavation
- 200k cubic metres of concrete
- 105k hours of labour
- widening of 44 bridge structures
- 11km of stormwater pipe

US comparables

Only comparable sized urban tollroads in the US are:

- northern portion of the New Jersey Turnpike (7 lanes and 6 lanes each direction)

- northern portion of the Garden State Parkway NJ (7 lanes each direction, total 15 lanes over the Driscoll Bridge)

- Tristate Tollway Illinois (4 lanes each direction)

- Dulles Toll Road, northern VA 4 lanes/direction

- Massachusetts Turnpike Boston Extension 4 lanes/direction

- Sam Houston Tollway 4 lanes/direction

(May be others we've forgotten - please email editor@tollroadsnews.com and we'll add)

 
First all electronic toll road

407ETR was built from scratch as an all electronic toll (AET) road with no cash collection. About 80%of tolls are collected by transponder, 20% by camera imaging of the rear of vehicles generating mail invoices. Tolls are computed based on entry and exit reads from gantries over the interchange ramps.

The pike has 41 interchanges in 108km (67 miles) six of which are expressway to expressway three and four level structures. The 41 interchanges have 197 toll points over ramps which are mostly two or three lanes wide. 497 toll lanes are presently covered with open road tolling equipment that can detect, classify, track and identify vehicles traveling at any speed under the pairs of gantries.

The company has 815k transponders in use by patrons - ASTMv6 active 915MHz transponders of the kind used for truck weigh station bypass in the US and on the I-394 toll lanes in Minneapolis and Trans Israel Highway. ASTMv6 transponders are manufactured in Israel.

The average trip made on 407ETR is 20.5km (12.7mi) and the average toll is $4.40 (C$4.55) or 21c/km (35c/mile). In 2006 toll revenue was $442m (C$456m @97c 2007 exchange rate) and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was $342m (C353m). After all those deductions the company about broke even.

The company has recently instituted a frequent user bonus system providing free tolls and discounted fuel at local gas stations.

The 407ETR toll system was the first all electronic toll system in the world applied to a complex multi-interchange tollroad. 91 Express Lanes in California was the first transponder-only tollroad opening in late 1995 but is a simpler 'pipe' - in one end and out the other - and it doesn't do video tolling. 407ETR's toll system was designed by then Hughes TMS of Fullerton California, since sold to Raytheon.

Here is a larger sharper version of the map of 407ETR by number of lanes in pdf format.

The table above has segments measured by Google maps and may be amended with company information.

see http://www.407etr.com

TOLLROADSnews 2007-09-19