procurement

2012-11-16: Indiana Finance Authority has announced it expects to get the new East End Crossing of the Ohio River near Louisville KY built for $763m or 23% below its estimates and with a proposal to open the bridge by October 2016 versus the end June 2017 expected date.

It must be last year when the press people at the PANYNJ told us we had to file a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for simple information about this authority's new toll system procurement - a close to $100 million project. We'd asked for the $-number of the four competing bids and the scoring of each bid by the various criteria used to evaluate them.

The choice of contractor was amazing. Even people who worked there were amazed they got the job!

CDM (formerly Wilbur) Smith continue to do the traffic and revenue work for the established toll facilities of North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) and full system forecasting. But C&M Associates get the new stuff - the Chisholm Trail and western extension of the President Geo Bush Turnpike are mentioned. Also apparently the Trinity Parkway, although that is not part of the announcement.

Texas DOT this week signed with Federal Signal Technologies LLC (FSTech) to provide three years of back office operations for the Texas DOT operated tollroads -  for $68m. Two two-year extensions are optional. Three firms were ranked after four had been asked to submit bids. FSTech was scored highest followed by TransCore and ACS.

The Illinois Tollway has issued a Request for Information (RFI) as the first step to procuring a new toll system. Kristi Lafleur, executive director told us on the telephone today that the Tollway hopes to get more flexibility and more capability from a new toll system.

Washington State DOT is moving to procure toll systems to be implemented starting in 2012 for two new projects in the Seattle area - the WA99 Alaskan Way Tunnel (2 toll points) and I-405 Express Toll Lanes (18 toll points.) The systems will at some point be extended to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge WA16, and the WA520 Floating Bridge Replacement. Both of these two currently have toll systems - but troubled ones, not working adequately, WSDOT says.

Kapsch TrafficCom IVHS Inc (Kapsch) has been chosen over TransCore to supply the next generation tag-reader system to the E-ZPass group of 24 toll agencies of the E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG). In a one page announcement just released the IAG says: "Kapsch TrafficCom IVHS, Inc.

Four companies have been shortlisted in the procurement of toll interoperability hubs by the Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI): ACS, Cofiroute, Federal Signal and an Egis/CS-Intrans joint venture named Secure Interagency Flow. Eleven groups had proposed so this means seven were dropped.

The bizarre toll system procurement at the Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) took another turn yesterday evening with letters emailed to Telvent and ACS telling them their protests had been rejected. There is an opportunity to appeal the protest rejection but given the speed and decisive nation of the rejections this is unlikely. (CORRECTION)

The nation's second biggest toll authority seems to be backing out of a decision May 25 by their Board of Commissioners construction committee to award a $81.9m contract to ETC Corp for replacing their toll system.