open road tolling

Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) is claiming $2,619,000 in liquidated damages (LDs or penalties) from Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation (ETCC) for failure to deliver new toll systems by contract dates. Damages continue to accrue at $6,500/day, MDX says, until the work is done.

In the Virginia capital of Richmond on the Downtown Expressway there's still an old-fashioned mid-1970s toll plaza of 12 conventional toll lanes, the central four of which are reversible. Twice a day every weekday Richmond Metropolitan Authority (RMA) staff have to switch the direction of traffic through those central lanes to provide the eight toll lanes need to cope with peak-hour traffic volumes.

Not much longer.

ACS, A Xerox Company, Helping Maryland Drivers Get There Quicker with All-Electronic Road

John Matheussen, CEO of the Delaware River Port Authority which operates four major toll bridges linking the south Jersey suburbs and Philadelphia is confident they can implement highway speed electronic tolling at all four within the next several years. He says design is complete on the first toll plaza conversion at the Betsy Ross Bridge and bids for the construction and system work will be sought soon.

Rhode Island Turnpike & Bridge Authority's (RITBA) board of directors voted this week to ask Jacobs, their consulting engineers to plan how they could do four open road toll (ORT) lanes through the middle of their toll plaza at the Pell Bridge in Jamestown. RITBA chairman, David A Darlington told us the introduction of E-ZPass transponders January 2009 has been very successful - they have 80% transponder usage now, 20% cash.

Richmond Metropolitan Authority (RMA) have given their engineering consultants at HNTB the go-ahead to do preliminary design for three open road toll (ORT) lanes to speed traffic westbound through the mainline toll plaza of their Downtown Expressway. This will be the first major modification of the toll plaza since the expressway opened in 1976.

Michael Lindenberger of the Dallas News has set off a firestorm of criticism of toll authorities in Dallas and Austin over the numbers of motorists getting free rides in open road and all-electronic toll lanes. Some of the reporting that picked up on the News pieces is sensationalized or unreal such as the assumption behind the report headlined: "Not all drivers are being billed on toll roads."

We mentioned HNTB as general engineering consultant (GEC) to Miami Dade Expressway Authority for their ongoing conversion to all-electronic tolling (AET) or as it  is termed there Open Road Tolling.

In fact there are two GECs on this job, the other being EAC Consulting, a Miami firm.

EAC has been involved in the project for five years.

see http://www.eacconsult.com

Tens of thousands of motorists traveling I-95 through New Hampshire this Memorial Day weekend experienced the joys of open road tolling. Bureau of Turnpikes administrator Chris Waszczuk told us in an interview today they are "delighted and proud" at how well the highway speed tolling worked, and how well it seems to have been received by motorists. He said toll system integrator Telvent had done an "excellent job" and the civil contractor also.

Usually protest movements involve angry people at meetings, placard carrying picketers, a petition perhaps, two or three local politicians, and a rather predictable litany of narrowly cast complaints from an environmental group.