all-electronic tolling

2008 thru' 2010 with a combination of open road tolling leftside and cash toll collection rightside (ORT+cash) there were an average 63 crashes per year in the vicinity of the four mainline toll points (Miramar, Okeechobee, Bird Road and Homestead) on the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike (HEFT), the Turnpike's Miami area spokesman Sonyha Rodriguez-Miller tells us.  

Annual crashes in the same four locations with all-electronic tolling (the cash plaza barriered off) numbered 40 in the latest full year period for which they have data - a decline of 37%.

2012-09-09: The six tollroads in the Austin TX metro area will all be all-electronic be the turn of the year, and  the last cash tolls collected will be collected Dec 31 2012 according to TxDOT plans. Mark Cross, a TxDOT spokesman told us January 1st is the present target date for ending cash toll collection on the remaining three tollroads with cash collection.

2012-07-20: The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced today that HNTB had been selected after a competitive procurement to manage conversion of the Turnpike system to all-electronic tolling (AET.)

2012-06-11: The Associated Press (AP) is running a Bergen Record report that the Garden State Parkway, one of America's most heavily trafficked tollroads "could be cashless by next summer." The Turnpike Authority which operates the Parkway has a contract with toll collectors expiring July 1 2013. The contract provides that the toller can eliminate all permanent unionized toll collector positions on that date.

Consultants McCormick Taylor and Wilbur Smith Associates (McCT&WSA) say in an interim report that all scenarios they model for the Pennsylvania Turnpike produce net revenue gains from a conversion to all-electronic tolling (AET). In addition AET would improve travel times and safety, reduce emissions, and provide management with more flexibility.

Crashes are down drastically at the Miami toll points of Florida's Turnpike since their conversion to all-electronic tolling (AET) February 19 this year. Five former mainline toll plazas (one a split plaza) went completely freeflow and cashless in the conversion. Previously they'd had open road tolling (ORT) through the middle but cash toll booths to the sides of the mainline plazas.

In the initial version of Wednesday's report on new developments in tolling in Ireland we attributed the work on eFlow - the Irish brand-name for free flow all-electronic tolling - to Kapsch.  Bad mistake. In fact it was the work of their leading competitor CS Communications & Systemes (CS).  

An emailed newsletter from HNTB's top two toll experts lists what they regard as "eight best practices" for going to all-electronic tolling. The email is called a Transportation Point Tolls Extra. The piece is authored by Rick Herrington, director toll services and Gregory Le Frois, director toll facilities group.

The HNTB list as edited by us:

Around the end of this year South Africa is due to open the first phase of perhaps the world's most ambitious highway speed all-electronic toll system.

Indiana DOT reckon they'll save about half operating costs and motorists will save time and hassle with the conversion of a small Indiana-Illinois cash toll bridge to all-electronic toll (AET) collection. The last cash tolls were collected December 27, 2010 at the Wabash Toll Bridge, a small 2-lane 1950s steel truss span in the far southwest corner of Indiana on Indiana state route 62 (IN62) and connecting over the river with Illinois state route 141 (IL141).