Toll Excellence Awards

   Transurban will deliver the eight-mile 395 Express Lanes project as part of its long-standing partnership with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to reduce traffic congestion in one of the world's 20 most congested cities. Transurban operates the 495 and 95 Express Lanes – a 45-mile network of dynamic, managed toll lanes that are serving over 6 million customers. Transurban will finance, develop, construct, operate and maintain the Express Lanes extension through the densely travelled 395 corridor connecting Springfield, Virginia and Washington, DC. The financing of the 395 Express Lanes involved multiple parties working together including Transurban North America, the Virginia Resources Authority, the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority and the VDOT Office of P3s. The process also included Commonwealth Transportation Board approval. Transurban created a unified credit that improved on the operational success of the 95 Segment to support the Series 2017 Bonds and resulted in a one-notch credit upgrade to BBB from both S&P and Fitch. The transaction received more than $1.5 billion in orders, allowing for further spread tightening to a final level of 49 to 50 basis points to Municipal Market Data rate. With demonstrated fiscal value to the Commonwealth of Virginia, its taxpayers and the project’s shareholders, the 395 Express Lanes moved swiftly to construction and is on schedule and on budget to open to customers in the fall of 2019.

Patience, persistence, and a commitment to community involvement and outreach made the difference for the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) when it launched the Selmon West Extension Project, the third attempt in 25 years to advance a project to reduce congestion along Gandy Boulevard in Tampa, Florida. Earlier plans that called for removal of homes and businesses along the corridor produced fierce community opposition. When THEA took over the project in 2009, its engineers proposed a different solution—an elevated toll lane along the median that would fit the narrow roadway and leave surrounding buildings intact. On the heels of the “Great Recession,” that plan still made business and community leaders nervous and was put on hold. But by 2014, population growth significantly increased congestion and raised concerns about evacuation preparedness in the event of a major hurricane. THEA worked closely with local leaders to reintroduce the elevated road design to maximize regional connectivity. To get the project completed, the THEA team changed their approach and focused on community involvement and outreach. This included a marketing campaign to respond to the concerns of businesses that believed they would be negatively affected by the construction. It also including hosting events to draw more customers to the Gandy Boulevard corridor, a social media initiative to engage customers, and earned media opportunities for local businesses on local television networks. The project, which had failed to launch on four previous occasions, received the endorsement of four Chambers of Commerce and minimal push back from the neighboring communities as a direct result of the grassroots outreach and strategic marketing plan that THEA created for the shopping district.

With a population of more than 2.5 million and more than 72 million tourists visiting annually, Central Florida needed to complete the 25-mile Wekiva Parkway (State Road 429) to relieve the increasingly congested regional road network. The Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) responded by building a $1.6-billion all-electronic tolling project that combines cutting-edge mobility and technology with enhanced environmental and social innovation, helping to protect wildlife and other natural resources surrounding the ecologically significant Wekiva River. In collaboration with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District Five, and Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, the project is guided by the 2004 Wekiva Parkway and Protection Act, which mandated environmental protections previously unseen in Florida. Under that legislation, CFX and FDOT bought 3,400 acres of conservation land that was previously slated for development, built 1.5 miles of wildlife bridges to replace two small tunnels, elevated the parkway to reduce vehicle collisions with wildlife, and limited the number of interchanges in the environmentally sensitive area. The project succeeded in providing a mobility solution with a true “parkway” feel while also helping to protect the environment surrounding the Wekiva River. 

Catch it Early is the mantra for a new geographic information system (GIS) web application created by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The application helps duty officers respond proactively to traffic flow and travel times across the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Historically, the Computer Aided Dispatch System (CADs) database was used to track fire stations and Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers that service various sections of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The PTC's GeoAnalytics team in conjunction with the Traffic, Engineering and Operations (TEO) department, developed a suite of tools to increase the visual awareness of traffic operations. The PTC partnered with Waze, AccuWeather, INRIX and Verizon, to gain access to real-time data-feeds. GIS applications and dashboards were developed to display real-time data feeds, video, photos, radar, wind, travel speeds, weather, traffic conditions and the PTC safety and truck locations. These data layers help users and duty officers quickly identify major traffic incidents. With this suite of tools, the PTC is able to "Catch it Early, Act, Analyze and Review" (CAAR). The applications and dashboards allow the TEO to quickly detect, view, and evaluate affected areas and identify relevant emergency service providers for any given section of monitored roadway.

A new Customer Relationship Management System was one of the key elements of success when the Illinois Tollway introduced a 15-year, $14-billion capital program. The wider effort includes the introduction of the Illinois Tollway's first cashless roads, its first cashless interstate-to-interstate interchange, and new, cashless lanes in each direction along a 62-mile section between Chicago and Rockford, Illinois. From the time the program began in 2012, the agency has been preparing for significant growth in volume and complexity of tolling operations, with transactions expected to increase by at least 45 percent and revenues by at least 50 percent through 2027. That jump in activity, will translate into a massive increase in back office requirements.

To meet the challenge, the Tollway contracted with Accenture LLP for a new CRM system with updated business rules, customer self-service features, new and improved lane technologies, enhanced cybersecurity, and a wider range of external partners, including collection agencies, credit card companies, and other tolling agencies through interoperability agreements. The system now allows for more than $1.5 billion in toll and violation revenue, averaging 1.6 million users and 2.8 million toll transactions per day—more than 88 percent of them all-electronic via I-PASS or E-ZPass. 

The charge to Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation (ETC) from the Central United States Interoperability (CUSIOP) Hub project was to design, develop, test and implement a new interoperability hub system that complied with U.S. national interoperability standards and facilitated transaction processing, reporting and reconciliation for the seven (7) participating agencies in the CUSIOP coalition in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. CUSIOP member agencies include Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority (FBCTRA), Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA), Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA), Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA), North Texas Toll Authority (NTTA), and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).  The project replaced the existing Team TX Interoperability Hub, which had also been previously developed by ETC. The CUSIOP Hub will be processing transactions from other regional hubs in the very near future in the run up to achieve nationwide interoperability, using standardized protocols for file transfer and transaction processing. It is the very first multi-state hub that meets the new standards set for National Interoperability (NIOP), paving the way for the rest of the nation to follow suit. Furthermore, CUSIOP is the foundation underlying and enabling the region’s multimodal future, as the platform could be expanded to process data from non-tolling agencies and services, such as transit, ride-share and commercial parking. Thanks to the IBTTA’s Interoperability Committee that developed the national standards in collaboration with stakeholders across the nation, CUSIOP’s member agencies’ leadership and ETC’s innovative design, the seven member agencies are currently at 95% compliance with the national standard, and the system is expected to achieve 100% compliance in late 2019. To date, CUSIOP has processed nearly 1B transactions and more than $1B in revenue.

Overview

This program was intended to improve the overall effectiveness of Colorado's temporary license plates by creating a standardized tag design, specifications for placement of the tag on the vehicle and a database for vehicle owner identification.

Objectives

Three main objectives were to reduce leakage (lost revenue) resulting from inability to read temporary tags in the rear window due to misplaced tags, damaged/unreadable tags, tinted windows, fraud, etc.; increase safety measures for law enforcement by making the temporary license plate easier to identify at a distance, and by creating a database for vehicle identification and reduce the ability to counterfeit the temporary license permits/tags.

Results

For the Customer

The new standardized process helped eliminate customer confusion surrounding temporary tags. The new database is streamlined and provides the Authority more accurate address information meaning the customer receives a bill in a timely manner.

For the Authority

The initiative reduced the gross revenue lost due to the inability to read the paper tags by $6.7M when comparing the six quarters before the program to the six quarters after implementation of the newly designed tags and the streamlined database that allowed for improved identification of the registered owner of the vehicle.

For the Community

Local law enforcement agencies are now able to read the plate and complete a plate lookup before approaching the vehicle, increasing officer safety. Auto dealers received an updated, cloud-based vehicle registration and temporary license plate application that improved customer service at the time of vehicle sale. In addition, the new temporary tags provide a streamlined design and set requirements for the mounting of the tag on the vehicle. 

For the Government

The Department of Revenue, Division of Motor Vehicles received a cloud-based temporary registration permits application that was available to county clerks and DMV offices that provided an improved searchable database integrated with the permanent license plate and registration database. This improved efficiencies and enhanced effectiveness. 

This initiative is now being considered for use in Texas by the Texas DMV and the Texas Auto Dealers Association. In addition, this Colorado Legislative effort was used to model a similar temporary license plate program by the California DMV. This program has been used as a model within the toll industry because it is a true testament to what teamwork and collaboration can mean for a statewide initiative aimed at improving safety and enhancing business efficiencies. In the end, this program has benefited everyone from toll authorities to law enforcement agencies to government entities to customers.  It demonstrated that a local toll authority (Colorado political subdivision), was able to partner with several state agencies, state and local law enforcement agencies, statewide local governments (64 county clerks) and private businesses (Colorado's auto dealers) in order to persuade the Colorado State Legislature to pass legislation, which in turn improved the business processes for all key stakeholders. In addition, the local toll authority (E-470), through a one-time grant, was able to spare taxpayers the cost of this project.