Georgia turmoil sees hold put on award of toll system upgrade contract to ETCC (UPDATED)

Georgia State Road Toll Authority (GSRTA) is in turmoil with the removal of executive director Rosa Rountree. She seems to have lost out in a powerplay between the governor and the legislature over the future of the agency. The Governor has announced an intention to reorganize GDOT, GSRTA and other agencies.

The interim executive director of GSRTA is GDOT commissioner Gena Abraham. An official said that the toll system upgrade project has been put on hold so that new leadership can reconsider it.

Part of the thinking is that Georgia should consider moving to cashless, all electronic tolling, rather than modernizing its cash plus open road setup - the plan in the now halted procurement. In addition STRA (pronounced 'surtah' - like the Royal Navy in Britain they don't think they need a state adjective in their title) has to handle a protest against the grant of the contract to ETCC from TransCore. The existing system was supplied and installed by TransCore.

Told to put the toll system project on hold staff Thursday issued a most unusual withdrawal of a January 7 notice that they intended to award the contract to ETCC.

They now say they will continue to evaluate the RFP and the proposals submitted (see copy of the notice nearby).

They announced Nov 16 2007 that they had received proposals from:

- ACS

- ETCC

- Indra Sistemas

- InTranS

- TransCore

The project is called a Toll Collection and Back Office System Procurement, Integration and Implementation. An RFP was issued Aug 28 2007 with a proposals deadline of Nov 15 2007.

January 7 2008 ETCC was announced as the chosen contractor.


see http://www.georgiatolls.com/procurement.aspx

BACKGROUND: GA400 is a 10.5km (6.2 mile) six lane tollroad north of downtown Atlanta and handles an average 110k vehicles/day and collects $20m toll revenue/year. There are 220k transponders brandnamed CruiseCard in use attached to 134k accounts. 12k potential violation images are handled daily and 7k violation notices are issued each week.

The tollroad opened in 1993 and most of the equipment to be replaced goes back to then. There are a total of 18 toll lanes comprising 2+2 open road toll lanes through the middle of the toll plaza and seven stop-to-pay lanes on either side, three of which have automatic coin machines only and four ASCM/toll collectors in each direction.

Between each direction of ORT lanes is a pair of metro style rail lines.

Existing electronic tolling is a combination of TransCore Allegro hardcase transponders and eGo sticker tags. TransCore 3110 dual mode readers are mounted in the canopy above all 18 toll lanes. VES cameras are deployed in the ORT lanes. The other 14 lanes are gated.

The toll plaza is equipped with a staff and service tunnel where the lane controllers and coin machine vaults are located and which enables staff to move safely under the express lanes and the railroad.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-02-21 UPDATED 2008-02-22 12:00