video tolling

New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) operating the new 7.5km (4.7 mile) Northern Gateway Toll Road north of Auckland say they aren't wedded to exclusive video tolling. They say, as we reported earlier - http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3928 -  they plan to open Jan 25 with all-video tolling. No transponders have been issued.

However they told us this week: "We may look at introducing tags (transponders) once the road is up and running."

Goldman Sachs (GS) have negotiated a substantial minority share in traffic camera specialists American Traffic Solutions (ATS) of Scottsdale Arizona, providing the company with fresh capital to fund their growth. GS becomes the first institutional investor in ATS, says the ATS president, Jim Tuton. The big New York based investment banker will get two positions on Tuton's seven person board of directors.

Jim Eden chief operating officer at the North Carolina Turnpike says after two weeks of vendor demonstrations of their license plate reading cameras that he's impressed by the diversity of different systems on offer. May 5 to 15 North Carolina Turnpike Authority hosted eight license plate reading vendors demonstrating their abilities in an open road setting.

Nine companies are demonstrating their camera systems in North Carolina over ten days starting this week. The companies are:

Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) are upgrading their video enforcement camera system (VES) and also planning a test of video tolling. Advised by Traffic Technologies Inc BATA began a procurement last October to install a new VES in 67 toll lanes at the authority's seven bridge toll plazas, training of staff, and maintenance for three years.

North Carolina Turnpike Authority is enlisting vendors of toll camera equipment and license plate readers to demonstrate their wares from a bridge over I-40 from May 5 through May 23. The Authority is committed to cashless all-electronic tolling on several toll facilities in the pipeline so they have a major interest in video - which is the replacement for cash toll collection.

Representatives of nearly twenty toll agencies met in Dallas TX February 7 and decided to form an Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI). Initial focus of the group, mostly southern tollers, will be how to go about establishing license plate read reciprocity. With the strong move towards cashless tolling camera reads of license plates - 'video tolling' - becomes the mode for collecting the tolls of those motorists without a transponder account.

Central Texas RMA, operator of the 183A tollroad northwest of Austin TX is moving to implement video tolling, as a first step toward giving up cash collection. They expect to begin sending out video toll bills in March or April. Cash collection will continue for now.

The move to video tolling was endorsed by the board of directors of the CTRMA today.

Florida will soon have the nation's largest video toll program with two statewide rental car deals and others on the way. Florida Turnpike Enterprise which runs the state's SunPass transponder account system today announced contract agreements with American Traffic Solutions which is acting on behalf of Avis, Budget and Hertz and with Rent A Toll acting for Dollar and Thrifty.

Federal Signal Corp based in the Chicago area has bought British-based PIPS which is one of the leaders in license plate reading cameras worldwide. PIPS camera systems are in wide use for toll enforcement and video tolling.

Dollar Thrifty are now offering the Rent A Toll video toll service on their rental cars in the Denver metro area. Rent A Toll of Plano Texas have been offering a similar service on Dollar and Thrifty rental cars on tollroads in Dallas (NTTA) since Sept 2006 and in Houston since Jan 2007.

Stockholm's central area toll (SCAT) restarted Aug 1 about 13 months after a six month trial ended and ten months after a referendum showed 52/45 percent public support. A most interesting change is that the scheme now relies entirely on video tolling - use of infrared (IR) cameras that image the rear or front of vehicles and allow quite accurate reads of license plates.

Use of mobile phone messaging for toll collection has been demonstrated on the First Bosphorous toll bridge in Turkey. The system relies on video tolling plus the Short Message Service (SMS) that is commonly used on European standard GSM mobile telephones to make a toll payment. The text messaging also uploads the motorist's vehicle number plate and vehicle class to the toll operator.

Competition is heating up in the provision of electronic tolling for rental car companies. American Traffic Solutions Inc (ATS) a leader in video tolling for rental cars under the brand PlatePass has bought the patent rights to the transponder mounting device EZ-Shield used by their chief rival, Highway Toll Administration LLC (HTA). HTA is the longest established and largest company providing transponders for rental cars.