2015 Toll Excellence Award Winners
Customer Service & Marketing Outreach
Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau - 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.
Social Responsibility
Illinois Tollway - 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.
Technology
Transurban - 495 Express Lanes in Virginia
Transurban and the Virginia Department of Transportation launched the 495 Express Lanes in November 2012 to reduce congestion and offer drivers more choices. The 14 miles of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in Northern Virginia, the product of a public-private partnership, introduced new traffic patterns, a new E-ZPass® transponder, and new rules of the road along one of the country’s busiest and most technologically advanced highway corridors.
A project budget of nearly $2 billion, made possible through an innovative combination of public funding, federal financing, and private partnerships, triggered the replacement of more than $260 million worth of aging infrastructure and culminated in the most significant package of highway improvements the region had seen in a generation. The project included complete reconstruction of 58 interchange bridges and overpasses, many of them including new bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways, as well as upgrades to 12 key interchanges and new access points at Merrifield and Tysons Corner, two of the region’s most heavily-travelled shopping and employment destinations.
Toll Operations, Maintenance & Engineering
New Jersey Turnpike Authority - Traffic Permitting and Lane Closure Application
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority introduced its traffic permitting and lane closure application to more efficiently manage the more than 850 weekly lane closure requests it receives. The electronic system replaces the previous paper-based method of collecting, resolving, and communicating requests and managing the associated traffic permits. The new operations infrastructure limits the authority’s liability, provides speedy response and approvals to contractors and, most important, delivers timely, accurate lane closure information to the travelling public.
Private Sector Innovation
ETAN Industries – Fast Lane-The Financial Accountability Solution for Tolling
ETAN Industries delivered FastLane—The Financial Accountability Solution for Tolling in 2013, under an emergency procurement with the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX). The agency needed timely access to a complete toll-by-plate account management system, with clear financial accountability in the billing and collection process. The $17 million project delivered flexible, reliable, accurate billing, consistent, accurate reconciliation of all financial accounts, full in-house access to current operational and financial data, and superior customer service, allowing MDX to concentrate on its core expertise—building, operating, and maintaining roadways.
