So the southwest and northwest beltway around Denver is the E-470 toll road. It provides a convenient, low-traffic route around the city from our house to Denver International Airport (not to mention to at least one good friend’s house). To that end, we purchased transponders for both our cars so that we could travel from here to there without going through the cash lanes.
An interesting thing is going on.
On January 1, 2009, toll payments will change on E-470.
License Plate Toll will become available on January 1, 2009 as another option to pay a toll. License Plate Toll customers will be billed for their travel through any lanes. For those vehicles without an EXpressToll transponder, cameras will photograph the front and rear license plates and a bill will be sent one month later to the registered owner of the vehicle, for all the tolls incurred during that period. Cash and coin payments will still be accepted through July 3, 2009.
No advance registration is required. You just enter the toll highway. You will be billed later. Payment must be received by the date specified on the bill or the transactions listed on the statement will eventually become toll violations. In that case, a toll violation citation for each toll will be sent to the vehicle’s registered owner.
So if you take the tollway, without a transponder, and don’t go through the cash lanes, your license plate will be photographed, and the state will provide the E-470 authority with your identity and address and the like, and you’ll be sent a bill.
On July 4, 2009, coin and currency payment will no longer be available on E-470. Payment will be made only through an EXpressToll account or License Plate Toll bill. If the customer does not have an EXpressToll transponder, the owner of the vehicle will receive a License Plate Toll invoice.
I.e., the cash lanes will close, and you’ll either get a bill through the mail or (if you have a transponder) the amount will be deducted from your credit card.
Why convert to non-stop tolling?
- E-470 will offer a discounted toll rate over License Plate Toll and cash customers.
- Removing stop-and-start cash toll collection and adding License Plate Toll payment system will enhance the safety, speed and convenience of the E-470 driving experience.
- Non-stop tolling is environmentally-friendly because stop-and-go traffic as well as idling in cash lanes will be eliminated. It also saves fuel consumption by not having to stop.
- Over 70 percent of E-470’s toll payments are currently made with EXpressToll.
Which skips the biggest reason, i.e., they save a lot of money. No more automated “throw your change into the hopper” toll stops, or, worse, actually paying people to accept toll money. That’s a huge savings in operating expenses for the E-470 authority.
But, oddly enough, that’s not given as a reason.
(Note that only the second and third reasons are actually reasons, from a consumer perspective; the other two are simply conditions that the authority is providing).
Now, frankly, from my own use of the system, there’s not going to be a difference. And for the overall efficiency of the system, this makes a lot of sense. But I would feel a heck of a lot better if they were up-front about it, e.g.,
In order to reduce operating expenses, we will be eliminating cash payments and toll booth attendants on E-470. Drivers without transponders will be sent a bill based on their license plate (via information from the state of Colorado) as they pass through toll stations. We believe this will benefit drivers by providing faster, easier, ‘at-speed’ toll experiences while driving down E-470.
If they said that, it wouldn’t raise any flags. By painting it solely as a “convenience” without acknowledging that they’re working with the state or that they’re really saving money this way, even as they make life ostensibly easier for drivers, just makes it seem like they’re trying to hide something here.
oooohh, I never thought of my trips on the tollway as a “driving experience” before! Now it will be so much more nifty!
On a more serious note, I wonder how rental cars will be handled. Will you get a bill from the rental company a month later? Will you be forced to pay the toll even if you don’t ever use the tollway in your rental car? I don’t see any good way to handle this at the moment.
I would imagine the monthly bill will come with a date/time breakdown, and the Rental company will be able to identify who owes what- all at a hefty ‘admin fee’ like when you return a car without filling it up.
I’d imagine there will be a badly defined ‘Road Fee’ or ‘Admin Fee’ that will be applied to all bills to cover those cars that use the toll. They might even surprise you and simply assume a one time to and fro charge assuming that’s the only time the user will use the toll road and then taking any additional toll costs as a ‘loss.’
Of course I expect that the rental car company will watch this carefully on a yearly basis and adjust fees based on average costs.
Frankly the biggest issue I have with this is the additional nail in the coffin of any pretense of privacy in travel.
Cool, though I think I’ll keep my transponder anyways. 🙂
Most rental car companies have some sort of license plate tie with local toll authorities. I was pleasantly surprised to find out this was the case in Houston last time I visited, and I believe I’ve heard the same thing about here. The billing comes through pretty quickly, and, yes, an addendum to the bill is included (there’s a small administrative fee).
You are correct, Arty, that if you use a tollway then Records Exist About Your Travel. Which is probably not a great thing.
I see on the E-470 web site that five rental car companies already have something worked out that enables renters to drive “as if” they have transponders in their cars. That’s pretty vague, so I don’t know how it works.
Another thought: I wonder what else the cameras can see. The standard highway cameras on I-25 and I-70 don’t have high enough resolution to see license plates, and I don’t think they can see into cars very well. But if the E-470 cameras can see license plates, what else can they see?
I a transponder since we have a new toll road close to my house. The transponder was free although I did have to load it up to get it. I also got an additional $25 added since I signed up early. The road has only automated (ATM-like) and Fasttrak stations except at the south entrance. At each Fasttrak station, there is a reader and a camera that take the photos of each car. When license plates don’t match with transponders or there is no transponder, they have photos to work back to DMV records.
We get a discount on travel if we have a transponder, and don’t have to deal with the machines, so I’m happy with my little box.
The transponder is a huge convenience, no doubt.
E470 is already photographing all license plates already so as to match up transponders to vehicles. Currently, if the transponder is not working but the vehicle is registered as using one, they are able to bill the toll to the car’s account — but they end up charging extra if the problem is not corrected.
Also, the local transponders work in the I25 HOV lanes…at a much higher rate if you are a single passenger, but nice if there is a traffic jam.
How do they tell you are a single passenger?
Mostly Honour system with photo back up, one lane of the transponder reader is HOV and the other lane is HOT.