Manual collection takes its toll
MASSACHUSETTS residents were outraged by last week's arrests of 10 current and former toll takers for allegedly skimming $7,500 from their Massachusetts Turnpike Authority booths. But shouldn't they be more outraged that the archaic practice of manual toll collection continues? This is an inefficient system that benefits almost no one but its own employees and creates unnecessary congestion when a more efficient alternative is available.
A 2006 task force report found that manual toll collection costs almost 30 cents for every dollar collected in some parts of the Commonwealth. If the state department of revenue collected taxes at the same efficiency level, tax collection workers would exceed the current number of total state employees.
Few other government services are executed with the deliberate inefficiency and expense of manual tolling. Imagine if the water and sewer department sent employees door-to-door daily to collect for that day's water usage. Technology offers more convenient and more efficient channels for these types of transactions.
And the alternative is already with us, in the form of automated tolling systems, like Fast Lane. Right now, electronic tolling transactions account for almost 60 percent of the transactions on the Turnpike, but the state's goal should be to push that figure higher, as several other states have done. It is also probable that commuters and others who frequently drive account for the majority of the electronic tolling transactions. On a per driver basis, it is likely that a significant portion of the market is not yet using the technology.
To fix that, the state needs to keep expanding the distribution channel for transponders. Mass Turnpike recently made them available at Registry of Motor Vehicle locations. The next step is to copy the state of New York -- and make them available at retail outlets like grocery stores, drugstores, and convenience stores.
Next, the state should give drivers more fiscal incentives to get the E-Z Pass. It should expand the limited discount program by offering preferential pricing to E-Z Pass users. It should consider waiving the fee for purchasing E-Z Pass. Once again, New York has us beat. They credit the customers' purchase price to their toll account.
But the most important thing the state can do to facilitate real progress is to start building toll plazas to provide and promote open-road tolling, where drivers do not have to slow down for tolls and the majority of lanes are devoted to automated tolling. The New Jersey Turnpike has this kind of system.
Of course the reconstruction of toll plazas will cost money. But if one of the goals of transportation spending is to reduce congestion and increase throughput, then what is a higher value project than one that eliminates a deliberate choke point in the system.
Automated tolling also provides a flexible foundation for future transportation innovations. Other states are using or considering the use of congestion pricing, shadow tolling, and cordon pricing. Congestion pricing and cordon pricing have the potential to help distribute demand across time and mode, as well as move discretionary travel to less congested time periods. Shadow tolling can be integrated into a public-private partnership that provides an increased payment to a road operator based on traffic usage. There are reservations about each of these strategies, but they represent innovative approaches that are being utilized elsewhere. Greater usage of automated tolling provides Massachusetts with the ability to implement these technologies with greater ease and flexibility.
The alternative is to remain with the current system. Beyond preserving the jobs of several hundred toll takers, are there any other arguments for manual toll collection? The new management at the Turnpike, under the guidance of executive director Alan LeBovidge, is moving the organization in the right direction. His steps to encourage more automated tolling should be supported. But the state should increase the usage of Fast Lane and allow drivers using transponders to avoid congestion. Manual toll collection is the past. Ignoring the future wastes the tollpayer's money and time.
Steve Poftak is director of research at the Pioneer Institute.
