cashless

With cash payment disappearing on the tollroads of Florida as they go all-electronic, the state Turnpike is publicizing a major initiative to allow motorists to pay their tolls offroad with cash or a bank card.  The program uses the BlackStone “Touch-n-Buy” touch-screen terminals - bright red machines in use for multiple purposes at nearly 600 locations around Florida - in pharmacies, convenience stores, gas stations, ethnic markets, check cashing stores,

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.

The last cash customer went through the old 17-lane mainline toll plaza of the FL924 Gratigny Parkway of the Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) in Opa-Locka in the northwest suburbs of Miami at 11:57pm Sunday, paying the $1.25 cash toll for a car. As midnight approached workers began moving big red construction barrels in toward the central lanes to block off the 'belly-out/belly-in' of the old mainline plaza.

Major moves toward cashless tolling will be made this year and next, with the largest conversions to all-electronic tolling (AET) on major toll systems in Texas and Florida. In the Dallas area North Texas Tollway (NTTA) plan to collect their last cash tolls before the end of this year. NTTA already has two major all-electronic tollroads operating: President George Bush Turnpike and Sam Rayburn Tollway.

North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) has engaged cash stores operator ACE Cash Express to provide walk-in options for NTTA customers to pay their video toll - local brand is "ZipCash" - invoices. The ACE Express stores and cash machines will also allow north Texas tollroad users to open and load cash-backed transponder accounts locally branded TollTag.
 
Customers will be able to use the ACE Cash Express stores and machines to:

America's largest toller MTAB&T in New York City is moving to convert its toll collection at the Henry Hudson Bridge to all-electronic or cashless.

The last toll collector in Colorado handed in their coin tray for the last time 10pm Dec 31 as the Northwest Parkway went cashless with all-electronic tolling. The parkway's big sister E470 went cashless in the first half of 2009, and the last cash was collected July 3. I-25 HOT Lanes operated by Colorado DOT have always been cashless.

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.

Maryland authorities are proposing toll rates for cars of 25c to 35c/mile peak hours (6 to 9am, 4 to 7pm workdays) and 20c to 30c/mile offpeak - metric: 16c to 22c/km peak and 12c to 19c/km off-peak.

Port Authority New York New Jersey could abandon cash toll collection in 2012 on present planning. They would be the first big bridge and tunnel authority to implement all-electronic tolling (AET) in the US and one of the first in the world after the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia which went all-electronic in January this year. (CORRECTION SEE END) So far most of the cashless tolling has been on toll roads.

HEFT, the busiest tollroad in Florida with an average 460k transactions/day and point flows of up to 175k AADT is going cashless in the spring of 2011. The first construction contracts for toll equipment gantries and other civil works have just been let - $33m worth.

South Jersey Transportation Authority's board has endorsed a $56k report by Wilbur Smith Associates to lay out the implications of moving to all-electronic tolling (AET) as compared to upgrading obsolete electronic and cash collection and providing open road lanes on the Atlantic City Expressway (ACE).

North Texas Tollway Authority on the President George Bush Turnpike and E470 Public Highway Authority in Denver CO will cease all cash toll collection this week. The conversions to all-electronic tolling (AET) will be very differently conducted.

Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (aka Illinois Tollway) and local officials have broken ground on Illinois' first cashless or all-electronic toll interchange - located appropriately close by one of the Chicago area's premier hightech institutions, the Fermi National Lab. The Illinois Tollway has been a leader in implementing open road tolling through the middle of all of its mainline plazas, but all of these retain cash collection on the sides.

Doug Watt a visitor to Denver was not impressed by service on the Northwest Parkway. "You are the most rinky dink operation I have seen in my life," he declared in an email to the Parkway. Watt said he "sat forever in a line of cars" as each driver tried to figure out an IOU form that is left in a rack beside a booth for motorists using the tollroad between 10pm and 6am when the mainline plaza is unmanned.

An end to cash toll collection on the 183A tollroad northwest of Austin Texas hasn't discouraged motorists, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) reports. Traffic and revenue on the 183A is holding up well after two months of cashless open road tolling.

Sydney Harbour Bridge, an Australian icon and one of the oldest and largest toll operations in Australia went cashless Sunday morning (2009-01-11) about 8am local time. Tolls were collected by hand for the last time from a motorist who was presented with a framed certificate attesting to him being the last person to pay a cash toll to a toll collector on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

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

Toll execs like Paul Violette of the Maine Turnpike Authority and others contemplating cashless or all-electronic tolling worry about getting emails from customers like this which we just received:

"Dear sir or madam

US secretary of transportation Mary Peters this week called for the toll industry association IBTTA to work for the elimination of all toll booths in the US by 2014. The last ones "should be sent to the Smithsonian (Museum)," she said.