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IBTTA’s Toll Excellence Awards recognize the very best projects and programs the international tolling industry has to offer. Each year, we celebrate IBTTA toll agency/operator and private sector members whose creative, innovative, and positive programs set a new standard of excellence. You must be an IBTTA member in good standing to be eligible for consideration. For questions about the Toll Excellence Awards Program, please contact Erin Mosher.
2026 Submissions will be accepted March 16 - July 2, 2026.
For categories and guidelines, review the Submit a Project Tab above.
2025 Toll Excellence Awards Winners
Transitional Duty Program
Supporting Recovery, Sustaining Service: Illinois Tollway’s Transitional Duty Program
Launched in 2022, the Illinois Tollway’s Transitional Duty Program has become a model for workforce innovation, blending care for employees with operational strength. The program integrates 24/7 nurse triage, telehealth, real-time injury analytics, and tailored modified-duty assignments to keep staff engaged in meaningful roles during recovery. The results are tangible:
- 71% claims closure rate
- $351,000 in indemnity savings
- 54% reduction in total costs
- 56% fewer lost workdays in 2024
The Illinois Tollway is focused on supporting employees through recovery to ensure they stay connected to their teams and their purpose, while customers benefit from consistent roadway maintenance, reliable service, and safer operations. This proactive, data-driven, and people-first approach has made the Transitional Duty Program a cornerstone of the Tollway’s culture of care and accountability.
Raising Customer and Public Awareness about the Toll Text Scam
Guarding Against Smishing: Ohio Turnpike Protects Customers
In response to a nationwide “smishing” scheme impersonating toll agencies and attempting to collect fraudulent toll charges, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission (OTIC) launched a fast, coordinated multimedia campaign to protect customers and the public. Beginning in April 2024, the OTIC deployed Scam Alerts to more than 600,000 E-ZPass customers, issued four news releases, and leveraged social and traditional media to warn drivers how to spot and report fraudulent texts. A PSA video featuring a local media personality amplified the message, generating more than 323,000 paid views on Facebook, thousands of impressions on Turnpike TV at the Ohio Turnpike’s 14 service plazas, and wide national media coverage including CNBC. The campaign also included updates to the customer service call center IVR, which—together with the outreach—cut weekly call volume by 67% and reduced callback wait times from over an hour to just nine minutes.
By equipping customers with clear instructions, restoring confidence, and providing a model other agencies can replicate, the Ohio Turnpike’s campaign demonstrates how communications excellence safeguards both the public and the industry—earning the OTIC IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Communications.
New York Central Business District Tolling Program and Congestion Relief Zone
Historic First: New York’s Congestion Relief Zone Reduces Gridlock and Advances Access
On January 5, 2025, New York City launched the first cordon-based congestion pricing system in the U.S., the Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP), creating the Congestion Relief Zone in Manhattan. Despite the highly complex policy and regulatory environment, this project demonstrates how tolling can deliver meaningful public benefits while balancing competing needs. The results have been immediate and measurable: traffic entering the zone has declined 12–13% year-over-year, speeds have improved, bus and paratransit trips are more reliable, crashes and noise complaints are down, and nearly $160 million was generated in the first quarter—on track to fund $15 billion in transit improvements across the region. The program also dedicates $248 million to mitigation efforts, including $100 million for Environmental Justice communities, and provides new discount and exemption plans for low-income drivers and people with disabilities.
Through unprecedented community engagement, careful design, and a seamless rollout, New York’s CBDTP sets a new global standard for social responsibility in tolling—earning MTA Bridges and Tunnels IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Social Responsibility.
Drive Smart Florida: A Behavior Change Safety Campaign
The Central Florida Expressway Authority’s (CFX) Drive Smart Florida campaign is designed to combat the leading causes of preventable crashes on CFX expressways through a targeted behavior change marketing campaign (BCM). Designed utilizing the principles of BCM, which combines psychology with consumer insights to drive action, the goal of the campaign is to foster a culture of safety and courtesy and address the leading causes of crashes on its expressways including distracted driving, speeding, unsafe merging, work zone incidents, and road rage. Rather than relying on fear or guilt, the campaign emphasizes positive reinforcement and practical solutions, helping drivers see the immediate benefits of safe behaviors. CFX conducted in-depth research, segmented priority audiences, and rolled out targeted micro-campaigns such as “Smart Drivers. Safe Workers.” for work zones, “Merge Like a Master” to improve merging, the “Three-Second Rule” to reduce rear-end crashes, and “CARma Your Commute” to counter road rage. Since launching in 2023, the campaign has generated more than 12 million paid media impressions, 3 million earned media impressions, and 35,000 website visits, while building five new community partnerships.
By fostering empathy, engagement, and lasting behavior change, CFX’s Drive Smart Florida has set a new standard for safety communications—earning the agency IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Safety.
Cashless Tolling Conversion
One Night, One System: Kansas Turnpike’s Seamless Cashless Conversion
On July 1, 2024, the Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA) executed a full-system conversion to cashless tolling—one of the most significant technology undertakings in its 70-year history. In a single night, KTA replaced its trip-based ticket system with an advanced per-mile, all-electronic tolling platform, constructing 36 new toll zones with 72 gantries, installing equipment at 42 toll zones, and deploying next-generation roadside collection systems integrated with a new, state-of-the-art back office. At the heart of this modernization is the innovative “One Account” system, which unifies transponder and license plate transactions into a seamless customer experience while improving operational efficiency and revenue assurance. Since launch, KTA has distributed more than 343,000 transponders, achieved rising ETC adoption, and maintained strong collections. A smooth workforce transition and a communications campaign reaching more than 50 million people further supported customer acceptance.
By pairing bold technology deployment with thoughtful implementation, KTA has set a model for industry-wide modernization—earning IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Technology.
Habitual Violator Enforcement Remedies Program
Protecting Revenue, Promoting Fairness: CTRMA’s Habitual Violator Program
The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) implemented its Habitual Violator (HV) Enforcement Remedies Program to ensure all road users contribute their fair share to the region’s transportation system. Supported by state legislation, the program employs a graduated approach—beginning with courtesy letters and escalating, when necessary, to registration renewal blocks, prohibition orders, and on-road enforcement. This structured, data-driven process has delivered measurable results: in 2023, 28.6% of habitual violators made payments, monthly revenues increased consistently, and the program achieved an extraordinary 2,171% return on investment. Behavioral shifts are equally significant, with a 55% reduction in repeat violations among those completing the full remedy process. By pairing enforcement with thoughtful customer communications, CTRMA has improved awareness of toll payment obligations and transformed initial opposition into public support. Through technology integration, strategic collaboration, and a fair, transparent process, CTRMA’s HV Program demonstrates operational excellence and sets a model for revenue protection and system integrity—earning IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Toll Operations, Engineering & Maintenance.
MTA Bridges and Tunnels Central Business District Tolling Program
AI-Powered Tolling at Scale: TransCore Powers New York’s Congestion Relief Zone
In partnership with MTA Bridges and Tunnels, TransCore delivered the U.S.’s first congestion pricing system, launched on January 5, 2025, in Manhattan’s Central Business District. Designed for one of the world’s most complex urban environments, the compact all-overhead solution minimized disruption, preserved historic infrastructure, and blended seamlessly into the city streetscape. At its core, the system leverages a novel application of AI and machine vision to process every vehicle as a video-based transaction from all-overhead enclosures, ensuring accuracy and scalability across millions of daily entries. The results have been immediate: tens of thousands fewer daily vehicle entries, improved weekday rush-hour speeds, fewer collisions, drastic reduction in noise complaints, and hundreds of millions of dollars generated for needed transit improvements.
With features like variable pricing algorithms, AI-based video classification, and APIs for multimodal third-party integration, TransCore’s solution sets a global benchmark for congestion pricing innovation—earning IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Private Sector Innovation.
The Use of Data and Data Analytics for Road Traffic Management
Faster Detection, Safer Roads: Valerann's AI-powered Platform Reduces Incident Detection Time and Improves Road Safety.
In collaboration with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and Roughan & O’Donovan, Valerann deployed its AI data fusion platform, Lanternn, to enhance real-time traffic management and incidence response on Irish motorways. Lanternn ingests and processes in real time large volumes of structured and unstructured data from multiple data sources - floating car data, roadside sensors, CCTV, navigation apps, weather reports and historical data to deliver an accurate and comprehensive traffic information on a single pane of glass.
Tested on the M1 and M6, the pilot demonstrated on average 25-35 min reduction in incidents detection time, including detection of a multi-vehicle crush within one minute by consolidating 134 individual alerts from 5 sources. The results: faster operator response, reduced congestion and secondary crashes, and higher detection rates, with 47% of M1 and 65% of M6 incidents flagged earlier. Lanternn also detected additional incidents; if scaled nationwide, this equates to up to 20 additional incidents daily.
Hardware-agnostic, cloud-native, and predictive by design, the project demonstrates how AI and the use of data analytics can revolutionize roadway safety and efficiency—earning Valerann IBTTA’s 2025 Toll Excellence Award in Private Sector Innovation.
2026 Submission period: March 16 - July 2, 2026
Be sure to download and reveiw the Guidelines document below. A submission link will be live on Monday, March 16.
Award Categories for Public Sector Members
Eligibility: Toll Agency/Operator/Non-North American Group Members
There are six award categories for Public Sector Members. Public Sector Winner(s) are eligible for the President's Award.
- Administration & Finance
- Customer Service & Marketing Outreach
- Safety
- Social Responsibility
- Technology
- Toll Operations, Engineering & Maintenance
- President's Award - given to the best sumbission overall in Public or Private sectors.
Award Category for Private Sector Members
Eligibility: Suppliers of products or Consulting Services to the industry.
There is one category for Private Sector Members.
- Private Sector Innovation Recognition Award
Up to three (3) organizations who submit a project or program that has in some way furthered the mission of IBTTA and the tolling industry may be given an award.
Past Toll Excellence Awards Winners
State Route 241 Wildlife Safety Fence Improvement Project
The Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency (F/ETCA) is looking forward to a 90 to 95 percent reduction in vehicle-animal collisions along a six-mile stretch of the State Route 241 Toll Road in Orange County, California, after installing safety fencing and new wildlife undercrossings for cougars, coyotes, bobcats and deer. The safety fence ranges from 10 to 12 feet in height and features an 18-inch “outrigger” to prevent wildlife from climbing over. It is buried 24 inches to prevent animals from digging under, and is placed in close proximity to the roadway shoulder to minimize native habitat loss. For any animals that still find their way onto the roadway, the systems include jump-out ramps at half-mile intervals as an escape route back to open space. Working with the University of California- Davis Wildlife Health Center and the UC-Davis Information Center for the Environment, F/ECTA conducted a two-year field evaluation of undercrossings that were already in place, then identified enhancements that would improve wildlife connectivity throughout the area. The assessment involved GPS tracking of cougar movements throughout the Santa Ana Mountain Range, use of cameras to track wildlife use of existing undercrossings and consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Transportation, among other stakeholders.
Prohibited Vehicle Rapid Alert System
The Harris County Toll Road Authority introduced its Prohibited Vehicle/Rapid Alert System (RAS) as a spin-off project after replacing its legacy toll enforcement infrastructure. The original system upgrade included development and/or augmentation of software applications that generate an alert directly to law enforcement whenever a vehicle from a list of top 500 prohibited vehicles passes through a tolling gantry. For years, HCTRA knew the standard toll enforcement strategy of having deputies watch out for violators was becoming less effective. The authority had introduced video tolling for large corporate accounts, and allows customers to temporarily add vehicles to existing accounts without obtaining a transponder. The system also accommodates non-revenue accounts for disabled veterans and access for unmarked emergency vehicles. The added feature makes it feasible for a deputy to locate and stop a habitual violator to issue a citation. It also targets violators who try to avoid paying their outstanding HCTRA tolls and continue using the tollway by obtaining a valid toll transponder from another regional tolling agency.
Wrong-Way Pilot Driving Program
Wrong-way driving (WWD) is an immediate, urgent hazard on any roadway, whenever and wherever it occurs. That’s why it was a significant development when the Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) became the first agency to pilot Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) as a WWD countermeasure. CFX initially set out to develop a better understanding of issues related to wrongway driving, as a first step in deploying systems to minimize or mitigate the problem. Its research focused on equipping Wrong-Way signs with RRFBs, radar or laser detection, and cameras to detect, deter and prevent wrong-way drivers from using exit ramps to enter the toll road mainline. Its evaluation of RRFBs involved testing on five ramps along the roadway network, one on State Road 528 and four on State Road 408.
National Interstate Tolling Analysis Tool
CDM Smith developed its National Interstate Tolling Analysis Tool (NITAT) for the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as part of a wider interstate tolling study. This computer traffic model, the only one of its kind, is a sketch-level planning resource for modelling potential traffic and revenue impacts of tolling segments of the toll-free interstate system that are currently toll-free. NITAT allows users with no modelling background to run scenarios for the entire interstate system, for 48 individual states and for most other major highways and tolled facilities. It disaggregates more than 3,000 counties and urban areas across the United States into nearly 7,500 traffic zones and incorporates National Bridge Inventory data for major bridges on the interstate system. The model can compare different options for toll rates, deliver separate analyses for car and truck impacts, estimate capital and operating costs associated with toll collection, and assess impacts on network performance, safety and fuel consumption. One model run found that, if all-electronic tolls in the range of $0.04 per mile for cars and $0.10 per mile for trucks were added to the entire non-tolled interstate system, average annual revenue would exceed $46 billion in 2011 dollars.
Program for Transition from Manual Flat-rate Pay-Per-Use Toll Collection to Electronic Distance-based Toll Collection on Taiwan’s Freeways
The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau introduced its electronic, distance-based toll collection system to increase fairness and equity across the highway network, boost operational efficiency, streamline traffic flow through variable pricing, and deliver superior accuracy. The agency introduced manual and electronic tolling in February 2006, followed by an eTag system in May 2012, and now averages 14 million transactions per day with a tolling accuracy rate of 99.97% and detection accuracy of 99.9%, the world’s highest. The new system consists of 319 single gantries that feature a modular design for rapid deployment. It took only 10 months to install all the gantries, with no on-the-job accidents or loss in quality.
The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau also won the 2015 President's Award.
Program from Manual Flat-rate Pay-Per-Use Toll Collection to Electronic Distance-based Toll Collection
Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau
The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau introduced its electronic, distance-based toll collection system to increase fairness and equity across the highway network, boost operational efficiency, streamline traffic flow through variable pricing, and deliver superior accuracy. The agency introduced manual and electronic tolling in February 2006, followed by an eTag system in May 2012, and now averages 14 million transactions per day with a tolling accuracy rate of 99.97% and detection accuracy of 99.9%, the world’s highest. The new system consists of 319 single gantries that feature a modular design for rapid deployment. It took only 10 months to install all the gantries, with no on-the-job accidents or loss in quality. A brief presentation and video were shown during the ceremony, held in Dublin Irleand on August 31.
View Project Video (this link will direct you to YouTube)
Partnership with The Chicago Lighthouse
In 2012, the Illinois Tollway entered a partnership with The Chicago Lighthouse to manage a new advanced Customer Service Call Center and provide jobs for members of underserved communities, people with disabilities and military veterans. The new call center opened in October 2013 and today provides jobs for 124 employees from underserved communities, including 66 people with disabilities and 55 military veterans. The center, which features numerous accommodations for employees who use wheelchairs or are visually impaired, handles 8,000 to 10,000 customer calls per day and processes 27,000 toll and violation payments per month. For its partnership with The Chicago Lighthouse, the Illinois Tollway was named 2015 Agency of the Year by the state’s Interagency Committee on Employees with Disabilities.