Busy time for procuring new toll systems - GA, NC, OH, Mass Pike, NYC, IAG?

Latest unofficial word is that the long awaited IAG procurement for next generation E-ZPass toll technology will be out in February. However the executive director of the IAG Jim Crawford says: "At this point I can neither confirm nor deny any speculation regarding an RFP."

Believe it when you see it because the IAG is such a large complex cumbersome organization it would have difficulty ordering lunch, let alone new toll gear. And they have missed other deadlines before. (see CORRECTION at end)

A more sympathetic way of looking at this situation would be that accommodating the needs of some twenty diverse toll authorities so they can continue to get value from their existing big investments and have an orderly transition to new technologies is inherently difficult regardless of organization. Technological change is competitive and disorderly.

Many of the IAG decisions have to be made ahead of the RFP so that they get realistic and useful proposals.

In any case, leaving aside the IAG, the first quarter of next year will see five major toll system projects in procurement:

- Ohio Turnpike, the last of the big state tollroads to get a first generation electronic tolling has just released its RFP

- New York City's central area congestion pricing toll the procurement of which is being done by the New York City Economic Development Corporation

- Massachusetts Turnpike going for a new toll system including undecided quantity of open road tolling (ORT)

- North Carolina Turnpike choosing a technology (sticker tags or E-ZPass) for the Triangle Parkway and for a bunch of other projects coming down the pike having decided on cashless

- Georgia Tolls out for a new toll system for their GA400 tollroad north of central Altanta

Number of toll lanes is only one measure of the work but the table nearby gives a rough idea of the scale of these procurements.

Georgia

Georgia Tolls (GSRTA) got responses to their RFP about a week back. They bypassed the RFQ/RFEI and asked for proposals. They have a single mainline plaza to service their 8km (5 mile) 3+3 lane tollroad, a commuter route in from the north. The tolled portion goes from the I-285 belt route to I-85, the main radial in to downtown Atlanta form the north.

The mainline plaza built to the old rule of thumb of three toll lanes for every travel lane is 18 toll lanes. It comprises 2+2 open road toll lanes down the center with seven stop to pay cash lanes each direction.

The toller is looking to maintain that configuration plus the eGo sticker tags, so readers will need to read those - which means TransCore readers if new ones are needed. They want proposals that include some Automatic Toll Payment Machines (ATPMs) which handle bills and credit cards as well as coins.

Flexibility to adapt to new technology is another requirement, says Dan Guimond deputy administrator at GSRTA. That suggests they may be interested in multimode readers like the Encompass 6 that can be set to read eGo+ tags and E-ZPass. They already have readers that can read eGo+ and the hardcased Title 21 type transponders, although the latter are being gradually retired.

The existing toll system at GA400 is basically that which was installed when the tollroad opened in 1993. Only minor upgrades and changes have been made since. The toller is looking for new vehicle detection and classification gear, new toll terminals for collectors, new lane controllers, new signs - everything except the physical toll booths, canopies etc.

Ohio Turnpike

The Ohio Turnpike have produced their long awaited RFP for a new toll system including - for the first time - electronic tolling plus a new customer service center. It's a big system 234 toll lanes (100 entry and 134 exit lanes in a ticket system at 31 toll plazas). It will remain gated, so like MTAB&T in New York City it will be all single lane roll-through tolling with transponders.

Higher speed gates will be installed in the transponder lanes.

Given the gates it will not need cameras for enforcement. The RFP excludes any new construction needed. Civil work - for some new configuring of entry and exit lanes will be contracted separately.

Ohio is abandoning its 1970s vintage IBM-designed weigh in motion vehicle classification system and under the new toll system will transition to more conventional axle-counting classes. That will leave neighboring Pennsylvania as the only weight based classer - and Pennsylvania is showing signs of dropping weight also since all their new toll points - including new open road tolling counts axles.

The Ohio Turnpike will be installing some Automatic Toll Payment Machines (ATPMs) for unstaffed lanes - these accept bills/notes and credit cards as well as coins.

Ohio wants a fully equipped customer service center, but they will staff it with their own people.

Gary Suhadolnik, Turnpike CEO told us that they plan to join the E-ZPass IAG and have told the IAG that. But they are holding off actually joining until next year when they get close to beginning transponder operations. About 20% of the cars and 60% of the trucks running on the Turnpike already have E-ZPass compatible transponders on their windshields.

Ohio started off with Vollmer assisting them to develop and manage the project but following Vollmer's takeover by Stantec and the departure of a bunch of Vollmer toll consultants to Carter & Burgess the Turnpike Commission switched its contract to C&B. Same people, different company.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts Turnpike is building a completely new toll system for about 210 toll lanes, a mix of barrier and ticket at 24 toll plazas including one plaza of 7 lanes at Massport's Tobin Bridge.

The bidders have to unit price Open Road Tolling (ORT) lanes because the Turnpike hasn't yet determined how many there will be, or where.

Unless you were to go completely cashless there's not much point in ORT at about 12 side plazas off trumpet interchanges on the ticket portion on the western Turnpike.

But they have about ten toll plazas that are either mainline or mainline-like with straight-through connections for major connecting expressways like I-84, I-495 and MA128.

If they go for 4 and 6 ORT lanes per plaza they could be in the market for about 50 ORT lanes.

A new integrated customer service and violations processing center (CSC/VPC) is required. This includes a requirement to enforce toll lane speeding violation notices and penalties. (p107) The bidders are to staff and manage operations at the CSC/VPC

The Mass Pike's RFP has some interesting IAG unit prices for MarkIV gear. Notice the basic transponder is $21 - at end.

Seems to us this would have been a good time for the Mass Pike to consider going cashless by adopting all electronic highway speed tolling - at least at the busiest metro area barrier toll plazas. Dallas, Miami, Denver and PANYNJ are on this course. It would involve laying off a lot of toll collectors, but the savings in ongoing operations costs would be significant given that collectors in MA are on $46+/hour.

New York City Congestion Pricing

New York City's congestion pricing will be a major toll system and a complicated one - up there with the biggest in the country. It is expected to handle 1.4m toll transactions/day. That's fewer than Illinois and New Jersey but not by much. Big, big toll system.

It will be cashless - all electronic.

As the city describes it, toll points will have to cover multiple lanes on each route in a ring around Manhattan up to 86th Street.

Since there will be an area toll as well as a cordon toll it will also need tolling equipment internally including fixed equipment on at least one north south avenue and on several east-west streets within the toll zone.

The area tolls add a lot of gear.

The city say in their RFEI that for planning purposes there will be about 340 tolling points - 120 on the outer ring and 220 internally. Most of these will have 4 to 6 lanes each so this means say 340x5 or 1,700 toll lanes!

That's bigger than all the toll lanes in Florida or in New Jersey. It is about half the whole E-ZPass IAG system in toll lane numbers.

Given that it will be cashless there will be considerable reliance on video tolling. Taking advantage of the high proportion of vehicles in New York City with E-ZPass transponders - about two-thirds - they won't face major challenges in establishing new transponder accounts.

But it will be the largest video toll operation in the US by far and will need to be able to handle 400k to 500k transactions/day - compared to the largest in North America in Toronto which is around 100k/day. Video transactions alone in NYC will be larger than in London where that's the only collection mode!

CORRECTION: P J Wilkins, toll administrator in Delaware and executive committee chairman IAG emailed:

"Like Jim Crawford, I also don't want to speculate on when the IAG procurement will hit the street, but am hopeful it will be in the very near future. I would however like to take issue with one aspect of your article, and that is, to the best of my knowledge, we (the IAG) have never had difficulty ordering lunch."

Editor: we stand corrected.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-27