Turnpike expanding cashless tolling
Toll collectors to be eliminated by 2022
By the end of October, no motorists passing through the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Gateway station near the Ohio border in Lawrence County will have to stop to pay the toll.
That’s because the turnpike will close its cash toll booths and all drivers arriving at the first stop east of the Ohio border will pass through an overhead gantry that will either record their payment by an E-ZPass transponder or take a photo of their license plate and send them a bill through the mail. The turnpike commission last week awarded a $1.275 million contract to Allison Park Contractors Inc. to close the existing toll booths and convert the E-ZPass lanes to allow the Toll by Plate system by Oct. 26.
The change is the latest in the turnpike’s efforts to switch to all cashless payments across the 550mile system and eliminate more than 600 toll collectors by 2022. Cashless tolling already is used in Western Pennsylvania at the Beaver Valley Expressway and the Findlay Connector as well as the Delaware River Bridge, Clark’s Summit and Keyser Avenue plazas in the eastern part of the state.
So far, the agency has been able to handle job losses by attrition with toll collectors transferring to other turnpike jobs in the same district under an agreement with the union representing the collectors.
“For this year, it looks like we’re going to be able to absorb the workers in that district in other jobs,” said turnpike spokesman Carl DeFabo. “At some point in the future, the commission is going to reach the point where that isn’t possible, but we haven’t reached that point yet.”
The turnpike wants to eliminate toll collectors to improve the flow of traffic for motorists, who don’t have to stop for a ticket with the cashless system, and to reduce its personnel costs. More than 35 agencies in 13 states have all-electronic toll collections.
Gateway is one of the busier toll
plazas in the western part of the state with about 12,200 daily motorists annually in 2017. That compares to about 18,500 at Warrendale, 19,300 at Monroeville and 33,000 at Valley Forge.
Donald Steele, the turnpike’s engineering project manager for cashless tolling, said the program has been more successful than expected at converting more customers to E-ZPass users. For example, the agency had projected 81.8 percent of drivers would use the prepaid transponder when the system started at the Delaware River Bridge in 2016, Mr. Steele said, but the actual E-ZPass use has been 83.2 percent.
Motorists driving rental cars can either take their own transponder to pay the toll or the turnpike will bill the rental company, which in turn will bill the driver.
Turnpike officials couldn’t provide the exact payment rate for customers who receive their bill by mail, but they said they are satisfied with it. The turnpike has the ability to seek criminal charges against motorists who have six or more unpaid bills or owe more than $500 in unpaid tolls.
Gateway will be one of the easier conversions, Mr. Steele said, because it already has separate E-ZPass lanes away from toll booths. When the first system was established at the Delaware River Bridge, crews had to install the system a few miles away from the ticketing booths.
The turnpike also will open a cash-only system this year on the Turnpike Route 66 bypass from Interstate 119 in New Stanton to near Route 22 south of Delmont, Westmoreland County. Collinson Inc. is expected to begin work next month on a $737,716 contract to install signs so the system can begin operation by the end of October.
“There’s a lot of thought that goes into this every time before we make the change to a cashless plaza,” Mr. DeFabo said. “We’re doing everything we can to improve the trip for our customers.”