Toll roads toss the coins for electronic methods

[kphoger]

As for the "I didn't know it was a toll road" excuse: I call bullshit on that one.  I can't think of a toll road or bridge that isn't clearly marked as such.  At least not in the USA.   Now, many could do a much better job of actually posting the toll amount.  But they're marked well enough. 

But many are not marked until the last exit, with a "Last Free Exit" tab and no other warning. If traffic won't let you over, you have a choice of some illegal and/or unsafe move or the poorly marked tollway.

Others have free one-way access roads that end without warning, forcing drivers onto the tollroad.

Even if a road is clearly marked TOLL, then that still doesn't tell a driver he can't pay cash.  This is especially a problem for out-of-town drivers, many of whom are driving a rental or company vehicle or borrowing someone else's car.  Can you imagine being a truck driver, seeing a sign that says TOLL ROAD, expecting to pay cash, and then finding out only too late that your company will be receiving a hefty bill?

Signs like "StatePASS Only" don't convey the necessary information as clearly as possible.  A driver might assume that means no other states' transponders are accepted.  What's needed is something like "StatePASS ONLY – NO CASH ACCEPTED".

[cpzilliacus]

Even if a road is clearly marked TOLL, then that still doesn't tell a driver he can't pay cash.  This is especially a problem for out-of-town drivers, many of whom are driving a rental or company vehicle or borrowing someone else's car.  Can you imagine being a truck driver, seeing a sign that says TOLL ROAD, expecting to pay cash, and then finding out only too late that your company will be receiving a hefty bill?

In my opinion, the signing on eastbound I-370 in Montgomery County, Maryland approaching the end of 370 and the beginning of TOLL Md. 200 (ICC) is pretty clear (note the words NO CASH):

[roadman]

For us in Connecticut, the closest toll road is I-90/Massachusetts Turnpike. Once you hit Hartford, the pull through signs simply say "I-84 EAST | BOSTON." However, no mention is made of any tolls until you're close to Exit 3 in Sturbridge, MA (US Route 20). Only in that area do the signs say "TOLL ROAD":

http://goo.gl/maps/CliRz

These signs were put up in 2003-2004 and are a huge improvement over the original signs.  The previous signs at this location had no reference to either I-90-MassPike being a toll road or Exit 3B being the last exit before you are committed to the toll road at all.

https://www.aaroads.com/northeast/massachusetts050/i-084_eb_exit_003a_05.jpg

[myosh_tino]

Signs like "StatePASS Only" don't convey the necessary information as clearly as possible.  A driver might assume that means no other states' transponders are accepted.  What's needed is something like "StatePASS ONLY – NO CASH ACCEPTED".

I think "StatePASS ONLY" conveys the message that you MUST have a "StatePASS" device to pay the toll and no other form of payment would be accepted.

In northern California, there are two types of tolled facilities, Express Lanes and toll bridges.  In the case of the Express Lanes, signs at entry points are clearly marked as "FasTrak ONLY"...






For toll bridges, there are electronic signs posted before the toll plaza to indicate which lanes are FasTrak Only and which ones accept both FasTrak and cash...


The Golden Gate Bridge was supposed to go cashless in February of 2013 but has pushed that back a month due to testing delays.  The Bay Area Toll Authority is watching the Golden Gate Bridge's conversion closely to see if it's possible to take the rest of the area's bridges cashless in the future.

[jeffandnicole]

But then how do you deal with travelers out of the area?  If I go to Texas, I can't use a toll road without paying an arm and a leg in fees.

EDIT: Don't even have to go that far.  The A-25 bridge in Montreal is just two hours away.

I'd like to see a way to pay on the road.  With modern technology we don't need expensive human toll collectors.  The sensors could measure the vehicle and display the toll amount on a screen, and the machine could accept coins, bills, and credit cards.  The pay lanes would be off to the side, segregated from the full-speed main lanes.  This gives you a choice.  If you don't have a tag and don't have money, or there's a long line in the pay lanes, or you just don't want to stop, you continue on the main lanes and get a bill later.  If you don't want to pay more, or are driving a car that's rented or borrowed, you stop and pay.  This gives maximum choice: use a tag, stop and pay, or get a bill.  The Austin area toll roads present this choice until the end of the year, when all cash collection will be removed.  Is it really so onerous to replace attended toll booths with automated machines?

I'll reprint exactly what I said before, striking out the items that may not be needed.  Even if you take the toll collector out of the equation, you still have:

Signage, booths, multiple collectors (one collector isn't going to work 24/7), money collection, accounting, security, buildings, bathrooms, parking, congestion, training, lighting, barriers, rumble strips, uniforms, etc.

I'm sure I forgot a dozen or so things.

It's not like it'll be an occasional motorist that won't have an electronic toll tag.  Even if 20% of the motorists use cash or credit cards, you'll need several lanes just to handle these people.

Nothing is requiring the motorist to take the toll road.  In the example of the ICC, for the past several decades motorists have used 95, 495 & 270 to get to the same destinations as the ICC.  Those motorists without an EZ Pass can continue to do so.

[wxfree]

I'll reprint exactly what I said before, striking out the items that may not be needed.  Even if you take the toll collector out of the equation, you still have:

Signage, booths, multiple collectors (one collector isn't going to work 24/7), money collection, accounting, security, buildings, bathrooms, parking, congestion, training, lighting, barriers, rumble strips, uniforms, etc.

I'm sure I forgot a dozen or so things.

It's not like it'll be an occasional motorist that won't have an electronic toll tag.  Even if 20% of the motorists use cash or credit cards, you'll need several lanes just to handle these people.

Nothing is requiring the motorist to take the toll road.  In the example of the ICC, for the past several decades motorists have used 95, 495 & 270 to get to the same destinations as the ICC.  Those motorists without an EZ Pass can continue to do so.

I understand that it costs money to collect cash.  This is why cash payers are charged higher rates.  The highest rates are for Pay by Mail, which is what they're moving non-tag holders to.  They're eliminating a less expensive option and replacing it with a more expensive one, so their concern evidently isn't cost.  My point is that it may not be best to disincentivize use of the toll road by removing options.  In some places it may be useful to ban non-tag traffic in order to reduce congestion, but some roads desperately need more traffic and revenue.  The toll roads in my example, those around Austin, have received over half a billion dollars in fuel tax subsidies to fund construction and debt payments, and are projected to need more subsidies for decades.  Pushing traffic away would be counterproductive.

[Alps]

A month or so ago I drove the new section of the Triangle Expwy. in NC, with the assurance that they never set up reciprocity with NJ. I also later drove a small cashless piece of Florida's Tpk. (Homestead Ext.), and I still haven't received a bill, though I thought they had much wider reciprocity. (I've attended a presentation on their plate-recognition methodology.)

[MVHighways]

I personally think that they should at LEAST have mostly transponder lanes with a few lanes on each end with a slot to put cash and coins in (no attendant). When I was 7 or so I saw that up in Maine on I-95. I saw that again earlier this year when I was up that way back in August, except we had an EZ-Pass this time so we just went right by.

[cpzilliacus]

I personally think that they should at LEAST have mostly transponder lanes with a few lanes on each end with a slot to put cash and coins in (no attendant). When I was 7 or so I saw that up in Maine on I-95. I saw that again earlier this year when I was up that way back in August, except we had an EZ-Pass this time so we just went right by.

From the time it opened in 1963 until about  1982, there were (never-staffed) exact-change coin drop toll barriers on all of the ramps on Maryland's I-95/JFK Highway between (but not including) present-day Exits 67 (Md. 43, White Marsh) and 109 (Md. 279, Elkton) for traffic that did not pass through the main barrier at Perryville, Maryland. 

I think all of the remnants of these were removed long ago.

Delaware's I-95/JFK Highway/Delaware Turnpike had similar exact-change coin drop tolls for traffic that did not pass through the main barrier at Newark.  I believe some remnants can still be seen on some of the ramps in Delaware.

[Scott5114]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so) and take it back to HQ. While they're there they can put in new canisters of change and small bills. Then after the route is done, the full cashboxes are opened and counted up at HQ. All of these cashboxes remain locked while in transit; if someone wants to steal they have to steal the whole box, and if they do that, it will be a pretty obvious "Oh, we sent Joe out at 3:00am with canister #3599 full of $1 bills and then we never saw him again. Better press charges."

The main issue I see is–what are you going to do if some jackass who wads up their money like a slob gets it stuck in the bill acceptor during rush hour?

[Brandon]

Signs like "StatePASS Only" don't convey the necessary information as clearly as possible.  A driver might assume that means no other states' transponders are accepted.  What's needed is something like "StatePASS ONLY – NO CASH ACCEPTED".

Sort of like this one along I-88 in Aurora?

[jeffandnicole]

A month or so ago I drove the new section of the Triangle Expwy. in NC, with the assurance that they never set up reciprocity with NJ. I also later drove a small cashless piece of Florida's Tpk. (Homestead Ext.), and I still haven't received a bill, though I thought they had much wider reciprocity. (I've attended a presentation on their plate-recognition methodology.)

My bill came about 45 - 60 days after I went thru the tolls on the Florida Tpk.  3 tolls...1 image was of the rear of the car; the other 2, the front. The pics were extremely clear - you could see my wife and I in the vehicle, what we were wearing, etc.

I could only imagine some of the images that they see!!!

[jeffandnicole]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so)

You mean during a time of day when it's dark and there's very little traffic?  Sounds like an easy opportunity to commit a robbery.

[Scott5114]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so)

You mean during a time of day when it's dark and there's very little traffic?  Sounds like an easy opportunity to commit a robbery.

Well, you can't really shut the lanes down to do drop in the middle of the day with traffic whizzing around. It would probably not be all that hard to schedule the Highway Patrol to have an officer present at the scheduled time, either–many turnpikes have a dedicated Highway Patrol troop that only responds to calls on their designated toll road. (There is a separate Oklahoma Highway Patrol troop dedicated to each of the OK toll roads, and a similar setup on the Kansas Turnpike.)

[InterstateNG]

I drove on the Bush Turnpike in Dallas a few years ago. I'm still waiting for my bill.

Getting a bill from NTTA depends on the number of transactions (toll points passed through).  In order to avoid wasting money mailing bills for small amounts, they don't bill for fewer than 5 transactions.  The practices are explained here  https://www.ntta.org/custinfo/Pages/Billing-and-Payment.aspx

License plates from many states, especially those from far away, aren't (or weren't at least) in their database.

[vdeane]

I'll reprint exactly what I said before, striking out the items that may not be needed.  Even if you take the toll collector out of the equation, you still have:

Signage, booths, multiple collectors (one collector isn't going to work 24/7), money collection, accounting, security, buildings, bathrooms, parking, congestion, training, lighting, barriers, rumble strips, uniforms, etc.

I'm sure I forgot a dozen or so things.

You need signage regardless.  You'd still have booths, but I don't see why you would have buildings, parking, or training.  NY doesn't use rumble strips for most Thruway barriers, but I can't imagine they're expensive given that we use them for every construction project.  You need security, money collection, and accounting of some form for all-electronic as well.

If the opportunity cost of constructing toll booths is too high, perhaps the road shouldn't be tolled in the first place.

Nothing is requiring the motorist to take the toll road.  In the example of the ICC, for the past several decades motorists have used 95, 495 & 270 to get to the same destinations as the ICC.  Those motorists without an EZ Pass can continue to do so.

I can't believe what you're saying here.  People should be shoved onto inferior roads just because they're not from the area!?!?  Perhaps the US should be dissolved too, since many people don't seem to like the "one nation" part very much!  Part of being in a union means that you don't discriminate against non-locals.

I can't even use an all-electronic toll road that doesn't take E-ZPass even if I didn't mind them slapping on a $25 penalty for not having "our metro's local transponder that has lots of its own fees and is no good outside of the tiny area that makes it".  My car is registered to my Mom and that likely won't change as I don't want to have to change out the plates on the car to those ugly yellow things NY now makes.

[jeffandnicole]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so)

You mean during a time of day when it's dark and there's very little traffic?  Sounds like an easy opportunity to commit a robbery.

Well, you can't really shut the lanes down to do drop in the middle of the day with traffic whizzing around. It would probably not be all that hard to schedule the Highway Patrol to have an officer present at the scheduled time, either—many turnpikes have a dedicated Highway Patrol troop that only responds to calls on their designated toll road. (There is a separate Oklahoma Highway Patrol troop dedicated to each of the OK toll roads, and a similar setup on the Kansas Turnpike.)

Sure you can.  Many of the GSP toll plazas are unmanned, along with the AC Expressway, just to name 2 toll roads.  Access to the lane is maintained at almost all times. It's been done for 50+ years.

[jeffandnicole]

I'll reprint exactly what I said before, striking out the items that may not be needed.  Even if you take the toll collector out of the equation, you still have:

Signage, booths, multiple collectors (one collector isn't going to work 24/7), money collection, accounting, security, buildings, bathrooms, parking, congestion, training, lighting, barriers, rumble strips, uniforms, etc.

I'm sure I forgot a dozen or so things.

You need signage regardless.  You'd still have booths, but I don't see why you would have buildings, parking, or training.  NY doesn't use rumble strips for most Thruway barriers, but I can't imagine they're expensive given that we use them for every construction project.  You need security, money collection, and accounting of some form for all-electronic as well.

If the opportunity cost of constructing toll booths is too high, perhaps the road shouldn't be tolled in the first place.

Nothing is requiring the motorist to take the toll road.  In the example of the ICC, for the past several decades motorists have used 95, 495 & 270 to get to the same destinations as the ICC.  Those motorists without an EZ Pass can continue to do so.

I can't believe what you're saying here.  People should be shoved onto inferior roads just because they're not from the area!?!?  Perhaps the US should be dissolved too, since many people don't seem to like the "one nation" part very much!  Part of being in a union means that you don't discriminate against non-locals.

I can't even use an all-electronic toll road that doesn't take E-ZPass even if I didn't mind them slapping on a $25 penalty for not having "our metro's local transponder that has lots of its own fees and is no good outside of the tiny area that makes it".  My car is registered to my Mom and that likely won't change as I don't want to have to change out the plates on the car to those ugly yellow things NY now makes.

I'll reprint exactly what I said before, striking out the items that may not be needed.  Even if you take the toll collector out of the equation, you still have:

Signage, booths, multiple collectors (one collector isn't going to work 24/7), money collection, accounting, security, buildings, bathrooms, parking, congestion, training, lighting, barriers, rumble strips, uniforms, etc.

I'm sure I forgot a dozen or so things.

You need signage regardless.  You'd still have booths, but I don't see why you would have buildings, parking, or training.  NY doesn't use rumble strips for most Thruway barriers, but I can't imagine they're expensive given that we use them for every construction project.  You need security, money collection, and accounting of some form for all-electronic as well.

If the opportunity cost of constructing toll booths is too high, perhaps the road shouldn't be tolled in the first place.

Nothing is requiring the motorist to take the toll road.  In the example of the ICC, for the past several decades motorists have used 95, 495 & 270 to get to the same destinations as the ICC.  Those motorists without an EZ Pass can continue to do so.

I can't believe what you're saying here.  People should be shoved onto inferior roads just because they're not from the area!?!?  Perhaps the US should be dissolved too, since many people don't seem to like the "one nation" part very much!  Part of being in a union means that you don't discriminate against non-locals.

I can't even use an all-electronic toll road that doesn't take E-ZPass even if I didn't mind them slapping on a $25 penalty for not having "our metro's local transponder that has lots of its own fees and is no good outside of the tiny area that makes it".  My car is registered to my Mom and that likely won't change as I don't want to have to change out the plates on the car to those ugly yellow things NY now makes.

You need buildings because you need to house the electronic equipment required to run the toll equipment, an electric meter, etc.  Maybe you can get away with a steel booth, or if fortunate, a box like one used to house traffic light equipment.  But you need something.

Parking.  Where is someone going to park to collect the money?  Even if it's on the shoulder, that has to be created.

Training.  You need to instruct someone how to pick up the money.  Or do you just give someone the keys to go out there and do it?  If that person was hit by a vehicle and wasn't given training manuals on the safe operation of collecting money, that would very easily come back on the toll authority for not providing training and safety equipment.

Signage:  You'll need signs denoting the highway split for electronic toll passes and the cash/credit card side. And not just one, but one or two a mile (or two) away, another a half-mile...

Actually - we're all familiar with how highways work.  You just don't have one sign for an exit or a toll plaza.

Inferior highways?  Just a year ago, 95/495/270 was the main way to make the trip.  Suddenly, it's now an inferior roadway?

[cpzilliacus]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so) and take it back to HQ. While they're there they can put in new canisters of change and small bills. Then after the route is done, the full cashboxes are opened and counted up at HQ. All of these cashboxes remain locked while in transit; if someone wants to steal they have to steal the whole box, and if they do that, it will be a pretty obvious "Oh, we sent Joe out at 3:00am with canister #3599 full of $1 bills and then we never saw him again. Better press charges."

The main issue I see is–what are you going to do if some jackass who wads up their money like a slob gets it stuck in the bill acceptor during rush hour?

Scott, accounting for and processing cash is an expensive operation. 

I think paper currency might cost more to process than coin (since coin can be counted and so forth using automated equipment), but large quantities of coin are expensive because of the weight.

I recall watching the transport of collected cash from a toll road facility many years ago (pre-E-ZPass).  A state trooper or two would show up and get their long guns out (not sure if they were rifles or shotguns). 

An armored car the size of a dump truck (complete with tandem axles) would pull in, and it would take the better part of an hour to get the cash loaded.  And when loaded and pulling out, it was obvious to me that the truck was at or close to its registered weight (possibly 65,000 pounds), as the engine strained and groaned (producing a large cloud of particulate exhaust) to pull away with the load of cash (presumably the truck was then on its way to a cash room at a bank). 

At this location, there was normally a cash pick-up six days a week.

[Brandon]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so)

You mean during a time of day when it's dark and there's very little traffic?  Sounds like an easy opportunity to commit a robbery.

ISTHA usually does it during typical daily working hours.  With the coin collection baskets only on the ramps now, they stay out of the way while swapping the bins.  No cops are present when they switch out the bins.  Of course, what robber wants to deal with a large number of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters?  With 85% of users using I-Pass (EZ-Pass), they don't need swapping out as much.  All cash is handled by toll collectors on the mainline.

[vdeane]

You need buildings because you need to house the electronic equipment required to run the toll equipment, an electric meter, etc.  Maybe you can get away with a steel booth, or if fortunate, a box like one used to house traffic light equipment.  But you need something.

I'd think you'd just need the same systems you use to run traffic lights. 

Parking.  Where is someone going to park to collect the money?  Even if it's on the shoulder, that has to be created.

Why not just park in the regular shoulder?

Training.  You need to instruct someone how to pick up the money.  Or do you just give someone the keys to go out there and do it?  If that person was hit by a vehicle and wasn't given training manuals on the safe operation of collecting money, that would very easily come back on the toll authority for not providing training and safety equipment.

How bureaucratic could this process possibly be?  It's not that hard to drive to the booths, put the box of money in a truck, and replace it with an empty box.

Signage:  You'll need signs denoting the highway split for electronic toll passes and the cash/credit card side. And not just one, but one or two a mile (or two) away, another a half-mile...

This is needed regardless of whether you have booths for non-transponder users or not, so it's moot.

Inferior highways?  Just a year ago, 95/495/270 was the main way to make the trip.  Suddenly, it's now an inferior roadway?

It takes TWICE AS LONG.  Roadways are meant for the PUBLIC to use... not just people local enough to have whatever otherwise useless transponder is needed.  Just because a way existed to get somewhere before the toll road existed doesn't mean that it's a good way.

[Duke87]

Re: reciprocity - one assumes that even if the automated system cannot read your plate that it can save the image for someone to look at manually. The reason it doesn't happen is that for what might be a bill of a few dollars, this isn't worth it to a toll road agency to do.

I imagine, however, that traffic cameras are a different story. If I ran a red light in Oregon, the system might not be able to read my Connecticut plates, but I'm sure they'd have a cop look at the picture and figure it out.

Though I know that NYPD's plate recognition system that they have in their squad cars is capable of running all plates from all 50 states and all Canadian provinces.

[Scott5114]

Cash collection isn't really all that onerous. You just have to have a Turnpike Authority employee swap the cashboxes out at some low-traffic time (probably 3am or so) and take it back to HQ. While they're there they can put in new canisters of change and small bills. Then after the route is done, the full cashboxes are opened and counted up at HQ. All of these cashboxes remain locked while in transit; if someone wants to steal they have to steal the whole box, and if they do that, it will be a pretty obvious "Oh, we sent Joe out at 3:00am with canister #3599 full of $1 bills and then we never saw him again. Better press charges."

The main issue I see is–what are you going to do if some jackass who wads up their money like a slob gets it stuck in the bill acceptor during rush hour?

Scott, accounting for and processing cash is an expensive operation. 

I think paper currency might cost more to process than coin (since coin can be counted and so forth using automated equipment), but large quantities of coin are expensive because of the weight.

I recall watching the transport of collected cash from a toll road facility many years ago (pre-E-ZPass).  A state trooper or two would show up and get their long guns out (not sure if they were rifles or shotguns). 

An armored car the size of a dump truck (complete with tandem axles) would pull in, and it would take the better part of an hour to get the cash loaded.  And when loaded and pulling out, it was obvious to me that the truck was at or close to its registered weight (possibly 65,000 pounds), as the engine strained and groaned (producing a large cloud of particulate exhaust) to pull away with the load of cash (presumably the truck was then on its way to a cash room at a bank). 

At this location, there was normally a cash pick-up six days a week.

Oh, trust me, I know. I work in a casino. I observe drop occurring at the machines every day. While I am not really allowed to go into Soft Count on a regular basis, it is my understanding (based on talking to several employees that used to work Soft Count) that they do have automated machines that count the money back there, separate it by denomination, and strap it up every 100 bills. The cashiers have smaller versions of them that fit on a countertop and just display a count of whatever money you send through them, no fancy strapping and sorting functions.

A cash box for use with a modern bill acceptor devices is made of ABS plastic and is about (I'm guessing based on a mental estimation 8 inches deep by 8 inches tall by 5 inches wide. They have a stated capacity of 500 bills. There is a spring in the box that keeps the bills squashed so tightly together they're almost a solid block. If you were just dealing with paper money boxes you could likely fit an entire turnpike's worth of boxes into a typical sedan.

Accounting costs must be taken into consideration, but accounting would have to be done with EZ-Pass anyway. You also have to pay for the drop team, but you don't have to have three shifts worth of workers, so it is still cheaper than having a manned toll booth (though more expensive than all-electronic).

[kphoger]

Inferior highways?  Just a year ago, 95/495/270 was the main way to make the trip.  Suddenly, it's now an inferior roadway?

It takes TWICE AS LONG.  Roadways are meant for the PUBLIC to use... not just people local enough to have whatever otherwise useless transponder is needed.  Just because a way existed to get somewhere before the toll road existed doesn't mean that it's a good way.

I believe the Chicago area tollways were originally created to allow long-distance (read: not local) travelers to avoid going through downtown; I just assume this was also the case in other places.  It seems quite ironic to me, then, that some folks are suggesting we sacrifice the needs of long-distance travelers to meet those of local commuters.

Toll roads are typically found on routes that are either long-distance corridors or urban bypasses–both of which cater to non-local traffic.  They should therefore make it easy for said non-local traffic to use them, which (IMO) means not forcing them to give up the option of paying cash.

[jeffandnicole]

Signage:  You'll need signs denoting the highway split for electronic toll passes and the cash/credit card side. And not just one, but one or two a mile (or two) away, another a half-mile...

This is needed regardless of whether you have booths for non-transponder users or not, so it's moot.

Out of everything, this is a head scratcher.  A toll road that is fully open-road tolling would only have a single sign, if that, approaching the toll point.  Otherwise, they just have overhead gantrys with the toll equipment.  Why would they have several large signs approaching that?

Besides, there are several roads that are transponder-only.  Feel free to check out the signage on them, compared to signage on roads with open-road tolling & stop-to-pay tolling.