NW Parkway leaves mainline plaza unstaffed overnight to experiment with cashless

Doug Watt a visitor to Denver was not impressed by service on the Northwest Parkway. "You are the most rinky dink operation I have seen in my life," he declared in an email to the Parkway. Watt said he "sat forever in a line of cars" as each driver tried to figure out an IOU form that is left in a rack beside a booth for motorists using the tollroad between 10pm and 6am when the mainline plaza is unmanned.

Steve Bobrick, operations director readily admits they have problems still, though he insists the problems arise with a small percentage of the mere 200 motorists who use the tollroad during what he calls the graveyard shift.

"98 percent of our customers find no difficulty at all. We've got work to do on how to handle the remainder (2%)."

Since December they've been without toll collectors in the mainline plaza booths 10pm to 6am.

Bobrick says laughing: "I'll accept the blame" when I ask him whose idea it was.

At the Parkway they need to decide whether to go cashless like their neighbor at E470, or whether to retain some form of cash collection, and if so what kind and how to communicate the options to motorists.

The graveyard shift was chosen for experimentation.

Doug Watt didn't know it but he and the others in the line were playing guinea pig.

The lack of toll collectors isn't a cost saving matter. It is experimentation and analysis. In fact the experiments are costing a lot more in signmaking, printing, coding, and in in-house expertise, Bobrick says, than any collector's wage savings.

Brisa's Portugese and Brazilian expertise is being drawn on.

Cameras are recording the license plates of all vehicles when the plaza is unstaffed. Those who choose the express lanes will get a toll bill in the mail.

Those who go through the cash lanes can stop at a rack and take a payment form. There the most important information needed is the license plate number so any payment can be credited against that plate.

They call it an Insufficient Funds Payment Form (see below).

At present motorists can simply take the form and drive on, and pay by mail or online. Or they can drive into the parking lot near the plaza fill out the form and deposit it and cash in a lockbox.

NW Parkway's website says:

"OVERNIGHT DRIVERS PLEASE NOTE:
Cash Payments – After 10:00 pm and Before 6:00 am

"Our Main Plaza toll booths are not staffed in the overnight hours between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am.  If you travel the road during those hours, just drive through the Main Plaza tolling area, using the EXpressToll® (transponder) lanes.  Within 5 days of your travel, go online to our website and make payment for only the toll amount due (no fees or penalties will be assessed), or mail your toll payment to us along with a completed Toll Payment Due form (again, you will only owe the toll payment amount, no fees or penalties). "

E470 halfway to cashless

That's the same business rule in place at the adjacent E470 tollroad, the Northwest Parkway's big brother. Since the beginning of the year motorists without a transponder have been allowed to use the former open road or express transponder lanes to be video tolled 24/7.

At E470 the cash lanes will remain in use until July 4 after which the system will go completely cashless. All the toll booths will be removed and the toll lanes will be barriered off. Those without transponders will be tolled by license plate as E470 is calling it.

At the Northwest Parkway Bobrick says there are obviously strong arguments for following E470 and they may do that. E470 does the transponder tolling under their EXpressToll brand for the Northwest Parkway and being interconnected they have a close working relationship.

But they are a separate operation. And they may continue to provide some cash payment option.

They could even go to selfswipe credit card.

They have two cash lanes each direction at the mainline toll plaza in addition to 2+2 open road toll lanes down the middle. They collect a $3.00 there from cars and $3 for each extra axle.

The 15km (9 mile) pike has two intermediate interchanges each with a pair of ramp plazas. Each ramp plaza has a lane for transponders and a lane with an automatic coin machine. Ramp tolls are 75c for all vehicles.

The Parkway offers no transponder discounts.

Bobrick says they tried a variable message sign to indicate the video toll and form payment options at night but it didn't work: "We couldn't come up with a succinct enough form of words to explain it."

Their strategy now is to rely on the website plus experience in cash form lane to get people using the open road lanes at night.

Both the Parkway and E470 say that transponder usage has got a further boost from their moves toward cashless.

The Parkway now has about a 70/30 transponder/cash split whereas before December it was about 65/35.

E470's Jo Snell says they noticed a significant rise in new EXpressToll transponder accounts with their first move to cashless. From about 400 new accounts a week they've gone to the 600 to 800 range in new accounts weekly.

The first video or license plate toll bills mailed by E470 offer the customer the option of transponder discounts off the video toll price if they'll apply for a transponder account when paying the bill. A lot do.

In March E470 was running 74% transponder tolls, 19% cash and 7% license plate or video tolls.

Rental cars a problem

The Parkway's Steve Bobrick says rental car users are the major problem for cashless tolling. The northern segment of the E470 and the NW Parkway both have a lot of travelers out of Denver International Airport on their way to the tech centers of Broomfield or Boulder. PlatePass and Rent a Toll do a nice job, Bobrick says in handling rental car cashless tolls.

But they don't cover all the rental car companies and some customers opt out.

Local users can get the hang of cashless with or without a transponder, Bobrick says, but the traveler as a one-time visitor is difficult to provide for.

"We're working on it," is his message for Doug Watt.

Major decisions on future tolling at the Parkway will probably be made in June, Bobrick says.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-04-06