Indiana E-ZPass users may face extra fee on Illinois Tollway

[Brandon]

It's behind the Chicago Tribune paywall/registration wall, but...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-met-getting-around-0429-20130429,0,5683104.column

Indiana drivers who use E-ZPass transponders to pay tolls electronically on the Illinois Tollway might soon be charged an extra fee to balance out what Illinois officials see as a long-unresolved fairness issue.

Since 2010, Illinois Tollway I-Pass customers have paid a 3-cent transaction fee, on top of the normal tolls, every time they pay a toll on the Chicago Skyway or the Indiana Toll Road.

But E-ZPass customers pay no transaction fees on tolls along the Illinois Tollway.

Basically, 59% of Skyway and Indiana Toll Road users use an I-Pass and ISTHA is providing a lot of the electronic tolling services for the consortium that owns the Indiana Toll Road.

[vdeane]

How is it an unresolved fairness issue if you're just gonna charge Indiana?  This article made no sense to me.  About the only thing I could get out of it is that the I-Pass infrastructure is horrible and needs to be replaced (maybe I-Pass entirely needs to be replaced, since the issue seems to be maintaining the distinct branding).

[DevalDragon]

Indiana started it by just charging Illinois. Illinois might as well return the favor and only charge Indiana.

I'm tired of paying the Spaniards 3 cents every time I use their road just because I have an Illinois I-Pass.

[NWI_Irish96]

Indiana started it by just charging Illinois. Illinois might as well return the favor and only charge Indiana.

I'm tired of paying the Spaniards 3 cents every time I use their road just because I have an Illinois I-Pass.

Indiana didn't start it.  The company that runs the Toll Road in Indiana AND the Skyway in Illinois started it.  So if they want to be logical about it they should charge everybody from Indiana AND Chicago.

[Henry]

Somehow, this was expected...in a bad way (for IN, anyway).

[mtantillo]

I think the history of this goes back to when Indiana was brought into E-ZPass.  The fee structure for IL/IN transactions in each other's states works differently than between other E-ZPass states.  The reason for this is that when Indiana was brought into E-ZPass, many of the potential users of ETC on the Indiana Toll Road already had I-Pass tags and accounts, and were unlikely to switch over to Indiana E-ZPass.  For the purpose of this discussion, the Chicago Skyway might as well be considered an extension of the Indiana Toll Road, since it serves Indiana commuters to Chicago and is maintained by the same comany, and thus uses Indiana E-ZPass as its "home" E-ZPass agency.  At any rate, it costs a lot of money to maintain customer service infrastructure and to provide tags to drivers, so Illinois resented having to provide customer service infrastructure and tags to people that would be using the Indiana Toll Road. Indeed, more than half of Indiana Toll Road ETC transactions are from I-Pass users.  So the agreement was that for every I-Pass transaction on the Indiana Toll Road/Skyway, a 3 cent transaction fee would be paid from the Toll Road concession to the Illinois Tollway, and vice versa.  This would benefit Illinois Tollway, since more I-Pass transactions occur on the Indiana Toll Road than Indiana E-ZPass transactions on the Illinois Tollway, and would thus offset Illinois Tollway's cost of providing customer service to Indiana users. 

Then the Skyway/Toll Road concession decided (I mean, they are a private business after all) that these 3 cent fees were cutting into profits, and therefore would pass the fee onto customers.  Each side blamed the other.  Indiana said that the money goes to Illinois.  Illinois said that Indiana is choosing to pass the cost onto customers, and that we have the same fee and absorb it.  Now Illinois says they are going to do the same. 

To me, this seems like a pretty awful case of transponder discrimination.  This isn't like many states in the Northeast that charge higher rates to all out-of-state E-ZPass tags, this is discriminating against transponders from only one state (and in the case of the Skyway, discriminating against in-State transponders!).  On the Tollway and Indiana Toll Road, where transponder tolls are significantly less than cash tolls, there still is a benefit to paying with ETC transponders (albeit 3 cents less with certain transponders, but still a significant benefit).  But on the Skyway, the tolls are actually more with an Indiana transponder than the cash toll!  This sets a very bad precedent.  I think E-ZPass should step in and put an end to this nonsense, before other states "get any ideas". 

[DevalDragon]

It goes back further. iZoom started charging I-Pass the 3 cents.