West Virginia Turnpike issuing RFP for new toll system

West Virginia Turnpike will be posting an RFP for a new toll system to their website Thursday. In a preview the Turnpike's general manager Greg Barr told us they badly need a new system, both to maintain and improve service to motorists. The present toll system was installed by TransCore 1999-2000 when E-ZPass electronic tolling was begun.

"Electronics has changed so much in ten years we can't replace equipment if it goes bad, at least not without great difficulty. And we want to be able to take advantage of many improvements that are now available," Barr said.

The Turnpike wants to build around sound components including Mark IV electronic toll antennas and readers, toll collector cash terminals and treadles that have a useful life still. But they want new lane controllers, plaza servers and central equipment and completely new software to fit.

West Virginia Turnpike has three mainline plazas with 10 lanes (2 reversibles), 10 lanes (2 reversibles), and 12 lanes plus a major ramp plaza in Beckley (6 lanes). That's a total of 38 toll lanes. All are instrumented with electronic toll readers.

No changes are proposed to that.

Highway speed tolling could not be worked into the existing toll plazas because of the rugged topography and cost, Barr says.

Toll lanes are ungated, so camera systems are vital.

And they need new cameras because their present SAIC ones from the 1990s are quite obsolete. For processing they have no optical character recognition at present, so every image has to be personally viewed on a screen.

Barr says they need to upgrade customer service with online forms for sign-up for E-ZPass and other functions that have become commonplace in the past decade. For now West Virginians have to telephone, fax or email electronic toll account moves.

Interested proposers will be required to attend a site visit January 6 so that proposals are properly responsive.

Proposals will be due Feb 12.

Proposals will be required in two sealed packages - the first to include statements of qualification for the job plus the equipment and work product proposed. That pack will be evaluated for minimal conformity to requirements.
Only those that are considered OK will have their second envelope - containing the price - opened.

There will be interviews with remaining proposers mid-March.

The evaluation will follow over the next few weeks. Scoring will give 70% weighting to the quality of the proposal and the proposer, 30% to the price.

As to timeline installation and full operation will be required by July 2011.

Several months of operation will follow with acceptance (or not) in October 2011.

HNTB have been advising the Turnpike on their RFP and will help them through the procurement.

The full documents should be available some time Thursday at http://www.wvturnpike.com under Purchasing.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-08