study

KPMG the large Swiss-based international accounting and management consulting firm has been selected by the Ohio state DOT to conduct a study of alternatives to the state turnpike commission for operation of the Ohio Turnpike.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has an online survey for people to register their views about the Turnpike going cashless, or all-electronic. It is part of a larger feasibility study they announced last December when they hired the local engineering firm McCormick Taylor and the national consultants Wilbur Smith Associates to do a comprehensive report on the feasibility an challenges.

A consultants study of upgrade options for the I-95 toll plaza at Perryville in northeast Maryland has suggested going to three lanes of open road tolling plus seven or eight stop-to-pay/cash toll lanes, or else jumping right to all-electronic tolling (AET).

The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) in the Phoenix area is looking for consultants to examine the feasibility of toll concessions to fund toll-managed or HOT lanes in the Phoenix metro area.  This follows enabling legislation for public private partnerships.

Wilbur Smith Associates and McCormack Taylor have been selected by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to produce a study of possible conversion to all-electronic tolling (AET). The Turnpike has made no decision to go cashless but the study is clearly a move in that direction.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike, America's oldest, already has exits where no cash is collected, and a couple in planning. It also has a number of cash lanes that are unstaffed - served by automatic toll payment machines that handle bills, coins and bank cards and dispense change.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has issued a request for statements of interest (RSI) in conducting a feasibility study on conversion to all-electronic tolling (AET). The study is to cover the full 545 miles, 877km including the Turnpike mainline and the several 'extensions' and must present options available, general system requirements, estimated costs, traffic and revenue implications and a schedule for implementation.

When a government agency that has spent the past several years touting the virtue of a new free road, grants a political "scientist" a six figure sum to study the "economic impact" of that road, you'd better expect a lot more political propaganda than impartial economic analysis.

A study has found promising toll express lanes on a northwest radial in the Chicago area - reversible lanes on the Kennedy Expressway (I-90/94)  and an extra concurrent lane each direction  on the Jane Addams Tollway (I-90).  Concurrent lanes on the Stephenson Expressway (I-55) a southwestern radial from central Chicago do not look good.

North Carolina DOT has a major I-95 planning & finance study under way that will provide much more solid estimates but our back-of-the-envelop calculations suggest the state should on opening be able to get in the range $300m to $350m/year in annual revenue from the planned tolling of I-95. As the economy grows, toll revenue on NC/I-95 would also grow.

North Carolina DOT has hired PBS&J and Baker to do an I-95 Corridor Plan & Finance study. The study to be completed by the fall of 2011 will look at requirements for maintaining and improving the interstate, project future traffic, conduct public outreach and examine financing options including tolls.