Contracts for conversion of Florida Turnpike's busy HEFT to all-electronic/cashless tolling

HEFT, the busiest tollroad in Florida with an average 460k transactions/day and point flows of up to 175k AADT is going cashless in the spring of 2011. The first construction contracts for toll equipment gantries and other civil works have just been let - $33m worth. HEFT derives its acronym from  Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike, and is the southernmost 75km, 47 miles of the mainline of Florida's Turnpike. HEFT is Miami's beltway, wrapping around the western and northern edges of the metro area. With I-95 ending in downtown Miami HEFT is also a bypass for Florida Keys traffic.

All-electronic tolling (AET) will require rebuilds of equipment and extensive civil works at four mainline toll plazas and 15 pairs of ramp toll points. Estimated total cost of the conversion is $98m.

The $33m construction contract announced last week will cover conversion of the Homestead and Bird Road mainline toll plazas and 17 Turnpike ramp toll points in the southern portion of the HEFT (US1 to FL836).

Two contracts being let, both due for completion Feb 2011

The contractor MCM, a Miami company will procure and install gantries. They will also add an auxiliary lane in both directions from near SW40 St to FL836, a distance of 5km, 3mi to improve weaving movements, making this section of the HEFT 12 lanes wide.

MCM will also demolish existing toll booths, canopies and buildings and remove toll plaza pavement. Other work includes regrading, restriping, and provision and installation of signs.

A second civil contract will soon to be announced to convert the Okeechobee and Miramar mainline plazas and 14 ramp plazas north of FL836.

AET "most efficient"

In a statement FTE says all-electronic tolling "is the most efficient way to collect tolls because it adds vehicle capacity at toll plazas and roadways while reducing the cost of collecting the tolls."

They say it also enhances safety by eliminating potential conflicts between traffic stopping to pay cash and through traffic in the open road lanes.

Benefits to the environment are also cited by way of reduced fuel usage and emissions.

ORT first

HEFT was one of the first pikes in Florida to get open road tolling (ORT) - in 2001. That was a TransCore job.

The all-electronic tolling will be installed by Raytheon.

The new system will be a considerable upgrade on the 2001 ORT:

- front and rear cameras in all lanes

- optical character recognition will be adaptive and linked to vehicle 'fingerprinting' (vehicle shape, color etc)

- enhanced processing and storage in the back office

- extra payment options

- improved auditing

Transponder usage is now approaching three-quarters of transactions (April 72%) on HEFT, but the target is 80% by Feb 2011.

Off-road cash payment option

While the new system will be cashless on the road, Florida Turnpike Enterprise is planning a procurement an "Off-system cash replenishment". A number of stores and gas stations in the general corridor will have touchscreen machines to allow Turnpike users to pay their tolls with cash or a credit card by entering their license plate number.

(The illustration nearby featuring Blackstone and Payspot comes from a FTE presentation, but we're told there are no commitments with either of these companies, and they were cited solely as an illustration - editor 2009-08-13 12:00)

Patrons will be able to "pre-register" their license plate and payment online as well. The payment machines in stores will also allow top-ups of SunPass transponder accounts.

Major communications effort

A significant part of the conversion will be new signing to communicate the options to motorists, following brainstorming and tests with customer focus groups.

The Turnpike Enterprise has been collaborating with the local toller Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) and the I-95 toll express lanes to get consistent terminology and signs across the three toll agencies operating in the metro area. 

MDX is also actively moving toward all-electronic tolling on its four expressways, a couple of which have interchanges with HEFT.

"SunPass or Pay-by-Plate"

The options on the road generically called in the industry transponder or video tolling road are being described as SUNPASS or Toll-by-Plate.

Tolls will generally be expressed as the transponder toll and the higher video toll charge handled with "Toll-by-Plate fee added."

BACKGROUND: HEFT varies in width between 4 and 10 lanes, most of it being 6 or 8 lanes.  Traffic volumes at the mainline toll plazas vary between average daily 72k and 115k, the highest being at Bird Rd near FL836, the lowest being at Homestead near the southern end.

Total toll transactions in FY2008 were 168m (460k/day).

This is a car pike. Only 4% of traffic has three or more axles, v 7% to 20% on the rest of the Turnpike mainline, north of Miami.

HEFT took $116m in tolls in FY2007, but FY2008 saw a 8.3% drop to $106m due mainly to the national financial collapse.

MDX's extension of FL836 tollroad may also have reduced traffic on HEFT, the engineers say.

URS, general consultants to FTE, forecast that traffic on HEFT won't regain the FY2007 level until 2014.

Tolls on HEFT are currently 5.9c/mile (3.7c/km) with a transponder and 8.5c/mile (5.3c/km) cash.

AET tolls for 2011 have not yet been determined.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-08-09