all electronic tolling

Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) will completely replace their existing toll system with one allowing easy conversion to all-electonic toll (AET) collection. The new system will support existing cash collection so the move to all-electronic or cashless tolling can be made separately from the switchover from old to new systems.

North Texas Tollway will in future bill all non-transponder reads initially as a video toll under their ZipCash brand for camera-generated tolls sent in the mail. Violation notices will no longer be sent directly for trips through open road toll lanes where there is still cash collection alongside.

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.

Tolls are now being collected by the latest all-electronic toll system (AET) - at the Golden Ears Bridge over the Fraser River, metro-Vancouver, British Columbia. CS' American subsidiary InTranSGroup began testing their AET system when the bridge opened for traffic June 16.

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).

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.

Salahdin Yacoubi of some acclaim as a chief implementer of all-electronic toll systems first in Melbourne Australia at CityLink, more recently Santiago Chile is on the job market. His eight year contract term is up, he told us recently and he's looking for new opportunities. In Chile he was director of operations at Autopista Central (AC), seconded to work there during the startup by Skanska Infrastructure, a co-owner with Dragados of the AC concession.

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.

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

The Irish Times reports that the toll collectors celebrated with a bottle of Bailey's after their shift ended at midnight Friday night. They were moving on to new work - outside of the toll booth. The last cash tolls had been taken at the toll plaza just south of the West Link bridge on the M50 motorway on the western outskirts of Dublin. At the same time the toll concession with NTR plc (formerly National Toll Roads plc) was terminated.

Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) is expected to begin formal procurement in early September of the toll systems needed to dispense with cash toll collection and go all-electronic. Along with North Texas Tollway Authority (Dallas TX) MDX has set 2012 as the target year for having all-electronic tolling (AET) complete, and cash collection permanently closed down.

MTA Bridges and Tunnels (MTAB&T) in New York is joining the list of US toll authorities planning or studying going cashless. Later this year the New York toller will commission a study on the feasibility of replacing cash collection with video. The news was a single sentence in a long prepared speech by MTA chief executive Elliot Sander titled "The State of the MTA" at Cooper Union on the authority's 40th anniversary:

Central Texas RMA, operator of the 183A tollroad northwest of Austin TX is moving to implement video tolling, as a first step toward giving up cash collection. They expect to begin sending out video toll bills in March or April. Cash collection will continue for now.

The move to video tolling was endorsed by the board of directors of the CTRMA today.

South Jersey Transportation Authority (SJTA) have decided to hold off on detailed engineering design work on modernizing their Egg Harbor mainline toll plaza (Mile Marker 17) in order to study cashless all electronic tolling (AET) for their Atlantic City Expressway.

North Carolina Turnpike Authority's board of directors has approved a staff recommendation that they do all electronic tolling (AET). This enables them to save $60m in capital costs on their first project, the $850m Triangle Expressway in Raleigh due to begin construction next year. The staff report also said there are safety advantages in not having some motorists peel off to stop and pay cash, then have to accelerate and merge back into the highway speed traffic.

The Wall Street Journal oped page today (2007-11-05 pA18) carries a piece by Bob Poole urging tollers in America to completely do away with toll booths and go all electronic. He is confident private sector tollers can be counted on to "put their customers' interest first, by eliminating cash tolling. He adds: "Since most U.S.

Toll booth manufacturers: the trend looks grim. Another toll agency looks like going cashless. North Carolina Turnpike Authority is rethinking conceptual designs providing the modern US standard toll format of open road electronic tolling down the middle and cash toll booths at the sides (mainline plazas) with separate coin machine and cash lanes at the ramp toll points. But they are now wondering whether they should collect cash at all - and go all electronic.

E470 may be the second established US toll system after Texas' NTTA to do away with cash toll collection. The board of the E470 Public Highway Authority (E470PHA) Sept 13 heard a proposal from staff for a move to all-electronic tolling (AET). Wilbur Smith Associates will produce a report by December.