Concessionaire on Indiana Toll Road has slowed ETC work to reduce plaza delays

The Indiana Toll Road Concession Company now expects to have electronic tolling (ET) fully operational by April this year. That will be five or six months behind the initial plan which was to have the job complete toward the end of 2007. But it should be well before June 29 2008, the date by which electronic tolling is contractually required under the term of the concession with the state.

Matt Pierce, spokesman for ITRCC says they deliberately slowed work on the ticket system in order to reduce construction-associated congestion.

"We are doing more of the work at night and in off hours so it is taking longer, but it doesn't inconvenience the customers as much. We'd like to get it finished sooner but in peak times we don't have spare (toll) lanes so we are trying to keep the period of complete (toll lane) closures down to the minimum."

The company is now working on electronic tolling and other toll modernization in the ticket part of the Toll Road from the Ohio line at Mile Marker 157 west to Mile Marker 23 in Portage. The work is about 70% done, Pierce says.

The company opened electronic tolling in the barrier system of the Toll Road June 24 2007, just days short of a year after the toll concession began. That's between the Westpoint Plaza near the Illinois Line and Mile Marker 23 in Portage.

There were widespread complaints about congestion both before and for some weeks after ET began in the barrier portion of the Toll Road.

Startup problems

The congestion which lasted most of July and August was attributed to:

- lanes closed for recalibration and other fixes of antennas and readers

- motorists not understanding the concept of transponder-only lanes and getting in the transponder-only lanes with cash

- delays in getting brighter signs installed

- premature operation of some transponder-only lanes and a resulting imbalance of lanes as between ET-only and mixed-mode lanes handling cash

- construction work including 3rd laning

Calibration/tuning problems in first month

In the first three weeks of electronic tolling in July 2007 about three quarters of the lanes were reading 90% of transponder passes, with about one fifth (13 out of about 50) malfunctioning or only reading sporadically. These lanes had to be closed for tuning the antennas and retesting. Now the system is reading over 99% of transponders.

30% of drivers with cash in ET-only lanes

Another major problem was that up to 30% of the motorists in toll lanes that were signed for transponders-only (i-Zoom) were cash customers. Once the company got the new signage done and with motorists learning the system the proportion of cash customers wrongly in ET-only lanes declined from the 30% to about one percent by late last year.

More customers are getting transponders. At the start of ET about 30% of transactions were by transponder, mostly Illinois I-PASS transponders. Six months later the percentage is in the 40s and over 50% at some toll points in peakhours. I-PASS dominates, but 7,000 of the Indiana I-Zooms are now in use too.

As soon as electronic tolling is fully implemented the concession company is entitled to raise cash tolls. It is also entitled to begin drawing on a fund set aside to subsidize keeping electronic tolls at the old 1985 toll rate. Under an agreement with the state of Indiana a portion of the company's concession fee has been retained in a special bank account to pay the costs of a 10-year freeze on electronic toll rates for cars.

At the Westpoint barrier plaza this means that the cash toll for cars will rise from 50c to $1.25, while transponder tolls will remain at 50c. That is likely to prove another major incentive to motorists to get transponders, either I-PASS or I-ZOOMs.

Pierce says that the barrier toll system is now working well, moving traffic through the plazas more quickly, as planned.

Prime contractor for the toll system upgrade is Indra, a large Spanish electronics and IT company. Much of the work is subcontracted out to local companies. All 127 toll lanes are being modernized. All get antennas and readers for electronic tolling. The system is a basic lane constrained stop-to-pay or roll-through for transponder users. 27 of the toll lanes are reversible so there are 154 lane systems being installed.

The barrier system has 49 toll lanes (3 reversible).

The ticket system has 78 toll lanes (24 reversible).

Gates but cameras too 

The toll lanes are gated but they also have cameras with optical character recognition to process unpaid tolls in both cash and unmanned dedicated ET lanes. This is to speed throughput, avoiding the need to send an attendant over to a motorist whose transponder isn't functioning and who is holding up vehicles behind. (REVISED 2008-01-15 0900)

All toll lanes are getting the electronic tolling, new vehicle detection and classification gear, and new manual collection equipment in the toll booths. Total cost is on budget at $40m.

NOTE: An AP report says the electronic tolling is a year behind. This is false. The earliest ITRCC ever promised completion was Nov 2007.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-14