electronic tolling

Ohio Turnpike Commission will fire up their first electronic toll system October 1, and the E-ZPass Inter Agency Group (IAG) will be able to boast a continuous interoperable toll system from Maine to southern Virginia and from Boston harbor and Rhode Island to west of Chicago.

A Connecticut woman is heading a law suit against Rhode Island Turnpike & Bridge Authority (RITBA) over discriminatory toll rates for E-ZPass. RITBA which only introduced electronic tolling on their Newport Pell Bridge this January is charging $1.75 to out of state E-ZPass Inter Agency Group (IAG) accounts including Massachusetts FAST LANE.

Ohio Turnpike Commission's board have approved a schedule of new toll rates and vehicle classes to coincide with their introduction of E-ZPass electronic tolling due for the final quarter of 2009. Approved at the same Commission hearing is a second round of toll increases 24 to 27 months later - on Jan 1, 2012.

Just eight weeks after the Dec 16 introduction of electronic tolling at the Pell Bridge near Newport Rhode Island 67% of transactions are by transponder. 14% are out-of-state E-ZPass IAG transponders and 53% are transponders issued by Rhode Island toll bridge authority (RITBA) which operates the Pell toll bridge, the gateway to Newport RI from New York and Connecticut.

James Oberstar house transportation chair wants US Government 'stimulus' money to go only to projects that use items "manufactured in the United States." (Oberstar 2009-01-07 http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3922) The United States has only one factory manufacturing electronic toll transponders and readers - TransCore's in the northern part of Albuquerque NM.

The American offices of Kapsch are reporting "extraordinary success" in a performance evaluation of their 5.9GHz electronic toll system in trials on E470 in Colorado recently. In a press statement they say a nationally known, independent R&D laboratory evaluated the system and determined that it collected "100%" of more than 10,500 DSRC sample passes.

by Kodo Ogata, Tokyo – Despite a late start Japan's electronic toll (ET) penetration has increased hugely to 75% of transactions - as of the first week of Sept 2008.  (The US rate is below 70% - Editor) This is especially amazing since Japan was so far behind the US in implementation of ET (2001 on vs 1989 to 2000 for most US tollers.)

Rhode Island Turnpike & Bridge Authority (RITBA) is joining the E-ZPass interagency group (IAG) as an associate member, and is in the middle of an electronic toll systems procurement. Telvent Caseta got the $1.8m contract a few weeks ago for front end work, beating TRMI, Intrans and Transtoll.

They'll install and integrate front end systems for 12 lanes equivalent (ten real lanes, two being double covered superwide lanes).