HNTB provides Maine false & misleading advice on all-electronic tolling (EDITORIAL)

Maine Turnpike should ask HNTB for their money back on consulting fees on the York Toll Plaza replacement. HNTB as general engineering consultants have been providing false and misleading advice to Maine on the state of all-electronic tolling (AET). HNTB's misinformation has embroiled the Maine Turnpike in an unnecessary conflict with communities in south Maine over how to replace the York Toll Plaza, and set the Turnpike on a path of wasting some tens of millions of dollars on building a contentious white elephant.

Opinions are one thing, but facts are facts. HNTB can't get basic facts right. We say this having reviewed a recent "Q&A" prepared by HNTB for the York Board of Selectmen. Most of HNTB's passage on all-electronic tolling is reproduced below with facts interposed:

HNTB claims:

All-Electronic Tolling (AET) is a very recent approach...

FACT: All electronic tolling (AET) in which transponders or license plates are read at full highway speed with no stop-to-pay has been in use for over a decade, and is proven and well developed. 407ETR in Toronto one of the largest grossing tollroads in north America - several times larger than the Maine Turnpike - has been all-electronic from the day it opened in 1997. Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney Australia, and Santiago Chile, all have multiple AET tollroads and Israel has the H6. Many are over ten years old. Germany uses an AET system throughout their motorway (autobahn) network to collect tolls from trucks. Congestion pricing schemes collect tolls all-electronically in central London and Stockholm and several Norwegian cities. In the US AET was pioneered on the 91 Express Lanes in California in Dec 1995, and since then we count about a dozen AET toll facilities here. The largest number in the US are toll express lanes projects within freeways, but the technology and business issues are the same as on standalone tollroads.

Further the even more widespread open road tolling - all-electronic down the center and cash at the sides - provides much relevant experience for a move to AET. Open road tolling has been extensively deployed in southern California (TCA), Illinois, Houston, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, New Jersey, Colorado, Delaware, Atlanta.

HNTB claim: ... that just three agencies have implemented (AET)...

FACT: AET has been implemented by CPTC (now OCTA), SANDAG, NTTA, E470PHA, Colorado DOT, MNDOT, CTRMA, TXDOT, HCTRA, NCTRMA, FDOT, WsDOT, THEA - 13 US toll agencies by our count (which may be incomplete), not three

HNTB claim: ...on five toll roads

FACT: AET is implemented on 91 Express Lanes CA, I-15 HOT Lanes CA, Westpark Tollway TX, I-394MnPass MN, I-95 Lanes Miami, I-25 CO, E470 CO, NW Parkway CO, 183A TX, Sam Rayburn Tollway TX, Pres Geo Bush Turnpike TX, WA167 Lanes, Selmon Elevated FL, MN/I-35W, Loop 49 Tyler TX - on 15 US toll facilities by our count not five, and many more outside the US

HNTB claims:... and four more agencies are considering (AET) for four more roads.

FACT: MDX Miami and NTTA Dallas are fully implementing AET, not just considering it, and they are implementing it on eight tollroads. Florida DOT is progressively converting to AET. Toll agencies with serious planning studies for AET include PANYNJ, Florida Turnpike, OOCEA, SJTA, THEA. These between them have about twenty roads. It is being "considered" at the staff level by many other toll agencies for many more tollroads.  Maryland has an AET tollroad the Inter County Connector under construction. So does North Carolina in the Triangle Expressway in Raleigh. About six more tollroads in planning in North Carolina will be AET. All-electronic tolling will be implemented through the middle of Salt Lake City Utah on the UT/I-15 Express Lanes before the end of next year, and on MD/I-95 north of the Baltimore Harbor tunnels. AET is being progressively implemented on Florida's Turnpike, with a 76km (47 mile) HEFT stretch in Miami Dade going non-stop, cashless by early 2011. (CORRECTION 2009-11-13 10:40)

An interesting variant is the Northwest Parkway in Colorado operated under a concession by Brisa. It retains cash collection in peak traffic times but directs motorists without transponders to use the open road toll lanes and be billed by camera read of their license plate at night and off-peak. It is all-electronic off-peak. (ADDITION 2009-11-15 11:15)

HNTB, in their Maine work, grossly belittle the activity and energy going into implementing, planning and considering AET.

HNTB claim: This is a small number considering that there are 85 toll highways across the United States.

FACT: at least half the toll facilities in the country are either in course of conversion to AET, doing detailed planning studies, or studying it at the staff level. More are coming along. AET is becoming the norm for new toll facilities.

HNTB claim: Further, no AET systems are currently operating or are being planned for the New England region, even by agencies that are upgrading their ETC capabilities. For example, the New Hampshire Turnpike is scheduled to implement an Open Road Tolling system at the Hampton Toll Plaza on I-95, much like the one proposed by the Maine Turnpike Authority. They will not be implementing an AET system at that location.

FACT: New England sadly lags the rest of the US and the rest of the world in implementation of all electronic tolling - perhaps because of an excessive presence there of blinkered HNTB personnel.

HNTB claim: no existing cash-based agency has completed a total conversion to AET and therefore there is little to no available comparable information to assist other agencies with forecasting the applicability of AET for their own roadway.

FACT: E470PHA CO completed a total conversion from cash to AET July 4 this year and CTRMA TX in December last year. Moreover there have been several complete conversions to AET in Australia and other countries.

There is a rich experience of all-electronic tolling now to draw on outside of "total conversions." The experience of partial conversions and toll facilities built AET-from-scratch is also valuable. And the experience of open road tolling, despite cash on the sides, is relevant to the business issues of collecting from people who fly through without a transponder and must be pursued based on a license plate picture.

HNTB claim: "Under an AET system those tolls would have to be collected by obtaining a video image of each license plate, matching that license plate to a Maine or out-of-state mailing address, and mailing the owner of the vehicle a bill for the toll. The process itself would be expensive and highly unreliable and largely unenforceable, particularly given the fact that no effective reciprocity and enforcement system between states exists. The report estimates that the adoption of AET could put at risk as much as $17
million per year in uncollectable revenue."

FACT: By adopting Open Road Tolling through the middle of a rebuilt York Toll Plaza the Maine Turnpike will be exposed to this same challenge and risk of non-collection from out-of-state drivers as AET, while also continuing to bear the heavy cost of cash toll collection. Open Road Tolling (ORT) as advocated by HNTB requires the same procedures described for AET to collect from interstate drivers and carries all the same risks of non-collection absent effective interstate cooperation. HNTB is misleading the Maine Turnpike in saying ORT doesn't put revenues at risk.

ORT and AET are both open road, and both require interstate cooperation for collection of tolls.

HNTB claims: (HNTB) concluded that there is no reason to expect that reciprocity and enforcement agreements or the Maine Turnpike’s diverse customer base will change to such an extent that all-electronic toll collection will become a viable option during the next 20 year period.

FACT: For more than a decade a foreign toll operator 407ETR in Toronto with all electronic tolling has managed to achieve a decent collection rate on tolls from vehicles from multiple nearby US states and Canadian provinces using debt collection agencies. The German government with large percentages of foreign trucks traveling its motorways manage to achieve high collection rates through international cooperation.  

Not one of the toll authorities that has adopted AET regrets the changeover because of the level of uncollected tolls, though all are interested in improvement.

HNTB might acknowledge the work of the Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI) with membership of most of the toll authorities in North America. ATI has made interstate cooperation in video toll collection its top priority.

The claim that no progress is achievable over 20 years is preposterous.

Moreover with such a gloomy prognosis HNTB should not be recommending ORT which like AET is also heavily dependent on interstate cooperation. They should be recommending retention of all stop-to-pay toll collection at the York toll plaza - editor.

on the York or Southern Toll Plaza Repacement project:

http://www.maineturnpike.com/about/stp.php

TOLLROADSnews 2009-11-10