ORT

Conversion of I-80 at the Delaware River to open road tolling (ORT) is being delayed a bit. Announced last year for the end of May (Memorial Day) the schedule has slipped to the end of November (Thanksgiving).

The political battle over the design of Maine's southern toll plaza has seen the town of York hire their own toll system consultant to combat HNTB and the Maine Turnpike Authority. York mayor Michael Estes announced the hiring of Atlanta Georgia based eTrans at a large public meeting on the contentious issue Thursday night in York.

At last Delaware is moving to break the worst traffic bottleneck on the east coast - the Newark DE toll plaza on the I-95 Turnpike.

Virginia DOT was planning to use an existing contract with TransCore to implement about $54m of toll system upgrades to bring open road tolling (ORT) to the Dulles Toll Road in the Washington DC metro area. However a spokesman for the new DTR owners, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) says they have the option to issue an open Request For Proposals to compete the project.

Delaware River Port Authority are hiring Stantec to do design work on the open road toll lanes being done on the Betsy Ross toll bridge. They say they hope to the ORT lanes, being branded Express E-ZPass in operation in 2011. They hope it can be copied at the Commodore Barry Bridge.

New Hampshire DOT have selected Telvent Caseta to install open road toll systems at their biggest toll plaza - at Hampton on I-95. The $1.98m contract will cover toll systems work associated with the conversion, while civil works are being done under three separate contracts likely to total around $20m.

Betsy Ross Bridge about 4 miles, 7km up the Delaware River from the Philadelphia central business district will be one of the first bridges in the northeast to get open road tolling (ORT).

New Hampshire DOT's Bureau of Turnpikes is working "feverishly" to introduce open road tolling through the middle of their main Hampton toll plaza on I-95 by May 30th 2010. Administrator Harvey Goodwin tells us the rush of New Yorkers and Bostonians heading north starts in earnest in June, so to avoid another summer of toll plaza backups they've set a tough target date and a fast schedule.

Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) has won the open road tolling (ORT) contract for the I-78 and I-80 bridges over the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) have set July 2010 for the end of cash collection on their Selmon Expressway also known as the Crosstown. They are featuring the decision - made in principle more than a year back - and the date on their website at http://www.tampa-xway.com/ORTComingSoon.html

TransCore plan to lodge an appeal against the May 22 US District Court's dismissal of their complaint against ETC on patent infringement in Illinois. An official said: "I don't think you'll find this is the end of the story."

Cash toll collection is still kicking. In Maine the Turnpike Authority is pushing ahead with a planned replacement to their busiest toll plaza - the mainline plaza in York at Mile Marker 7, seven miles north of the New Hampshire border. And they plan a new $32m to $35m nineteen toll lanes plaza – 2+ 2 open road electronic toll (ORT) lanes through the middle and fifteen stop-to-pay toll lanes, eight southbound, seven northbound, straddling the ORT lanes.