all electronic toll

Short of major winter storms disrupting finishing touches Maryland's state highway authorities will open the first segment of the Inter County Connector 6am Feb 22. Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) reported the planned opening as an announcement today by the Governor Martin O'Malley. This is the first all-electronic tollroad in the US northeast.

With less than a month until the busy Miami area HEFT segment of Florida's Turnpike goes all-electronic there's a push to publicize a growing network of off-road locations where motorists can use cash to top up their SunPass transponder accounts. Most of the publicity has previously gone to the new Toll-by-Plate or license plate based collection method that will substitute for cash payment when toll booths and coin machines cease operations February 19.

Both major contenders for the Maine governorship now want the Maine Turnpike Authority (MTA) to give consideration to all-electronic tolling (AET) as an alternative to building a new wide toll plaza at the business end of the Turnpike in York.

At the E-470 Public Highway Authority (e470) they are making changes to the way they collect license plate tolls (LPT) under all-electronic tolling (AET) - forgiving past late fees and penalties, and increasing the options for LPT customers to pay their tolls. They announced late last month they are rebilling delinquent accounts without the late fees and other penalties for customers who pay up.

North Texas Tollway Authority say they are doing the final conversion of their network to all-electronic tolling (AET) with a schedule that will have the last cash tolls collected on the evening of December 10 2010.

We posed the following question Jan 23 to Dan Paradee, spokesman for the Maine Turnpike Authority on the controversy over the form that their southern toll plaza should take - (1) cash and roll-through electronic as now (2) open road tolling (ORT) through the middle and cash on the sides, the HNTB recommendation (3) all-electronic.

By April 2011 Johannesburg metro area in South Africa should have a world class all electronic toll (AET) system doing upwards of 2m toll transactions/day and collecting $500m/year.