ACS wins Delaware River ORT front end contract, VES for other bridges

Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) has won the open road tolling (ORT) contract for the I-78 and I-80 bridges over the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I-80 is the major truck route between New York and Chicago and I-78 is a major route between the the northern New Jersey ports/warehousing area and the central US.  The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) contract for $10.28m will allow highway speed electronic tolling with cash remaining to the sides. It also includes a violation enforcement system (VES)  so that gates can be removed at the US1 toll plaza on Trenton-Morrisville Toll Bridge and other Commission toll facilities.

The US1 bridge linking Trenton to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Philadelphia has undergone major modernization in the past two years.

"Remove the gates" is patrons call

"One of the most frequent requests we receive from the public is to remove the gates in our toll plazas," Frank G McCartney, executive director of the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission is quoted.  "Until now, that has not been possible because of the concern regarding toll violators.  Open road tolling and the violations enforcement system will allow the Commission to eliminate those gates, improve traffic throughput, and reduce congestion on our bridges."

ACS beat TransCore in final round

ACS won the DRJTBC in-lane contract in competition with ETC, TransCore, Transtoll, and TRMI. Finalists were ACS and TransCore. There were then negotiations between DRJTBC and the two finalists. ACS final price was $3.3m lower than Transcore.

This contract award for the front end of an open road tolling system complements a back end contract award of $10.6m made Oct 27 2008 to Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp (ETC) for operation and maintenance of a customer service and violation processing center. 

In-lane equipment to be installed by ACS will feed data to the ETC-built back office operation.

The lane-based gated electronic toll systems at DRJTBC bridges were installed and are maintained by TransCore.

The contract awarded today to ACS includes:

- design, development, integration, installation and testing of VES at the Trenton-Morrisville Plaza and three additional plazas, including integration and testing with the CSC/VPC (customer service center/video processing center) system

- optional addition of VES (video enforcement system) at up to three additional plazas, and integration with the CSC/VPC System

- design, development, integration, installation and testing of ORT System at the I-78 Toll Bridge and optional at the I-80 Delaware Water Gap Toll Bridge, including integration and testing with the ETC CSC/VPC System

The contract is a big win for ACS State & Local division based in Washington DC which has obtained very few front-end electronic toll contracts in recent years.

The division is a spin-off of a Lockheed Martin operation sold to ACS in around 2000.

ACS State & Local are the dominant operators of back office facilities for electronic tolling in the US, running the large E-ZPass facilities in New York, New Jersey and Maryland as well as the major customer service center in the San Francisco Bay Area including BATA bridges and the Golden State Bridge.

BACKGROUND: Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission was formed by the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1934 and operates seven toll bridges and 13 toll-supported bridges, two being pedestrian-only spans.) The Commission’s jurisdiction extends along the Delaware River from just below Trenton to the New Jersey/New York border.  The bridges counted 141 million vehicle passes in 2007 (386k/day):

see http://www.drjtbc.org

see DRJTBC resolution on contract:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/DRJinlane.doc

report on Oct 08 contract with ETC for back office ORT/VES:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3803

TOLLROADSnews 2009-01-26