High-Tech Tolls Put Commuters In Fast Lane

TAMPA -- Starting today, seven tollbooths will be added to the growing list of booths in the Tampa Bay area without any operators to collect money from motorists and make change.

Instead, the state will rely on technology to track vehicles that use the exit and entrance ramps at those locations and at the 13 other unstaffed entrance and exit ramps across the Bay area.

It's another sign that technology is making the toll operator's job as obsolete as the gas station attendant's.

Designers of the elevated lanes on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway didn't bother to include tollbooths, instead choosing to build overhead electronic SunPass sensors to track the traffic below and send signals to computers that deduct the $1 tolls from prepaid accounts.

"This is an evolutionary process that has been happening over a long period of time," said Martin Stone, planning director for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority. "I believe that somewhere down the road there will be an evolution where cash won't be accepted, or some type of machine will accept cash."

Among the changes around the corner:

--Less expensive and smaller SunPass devices that resemble stickers.

--Cameras that can capture a license tag number at high speeds. The tag number will be used to bill the car's owner for the toll or identify a prepaid account.

--Toll roads with nothing but banks of overhead sensors like the elevated expressway lanes, and only one or two tollbooths off to one side.

Technology is already affecting how we move about.

Consider that 60 percent of Florida's toll road drivers use SunPass. That figure is expected to grow to 75 percent by 2008.

And half of the ramps on Tampa area toll roads are not staffed by toll takers, instead relying on coin baskets and SunPass.

The SunPass technology reduces backups at tollbooths, eliminates the cost of building and operating tolling stations, and offers convenience to motorists who don't pay cash.

In November, the Turnpike Enterprise will start a three-month pilot program on the elevated expressway lanes. Called "Pay By Plate," the system will rely on high-speed video cameras to capture license plates and other details of cars.

The photos can be checked against a list of SunPass accounts to catch scofflaws, but engineers are more excited about the technology's potential to attract occasional expressway users who do not own SunPass transponders.

Drivers who don't want to pay $50 for a SunPass device and a minimum balance will be able to open Pay By Plate accounts with their credit cards.

Each time a car is photographed, the toll will be deducted from that account. The system will not replace SunPass.

"We're trying to make those elevated lanes available to the infrequent, casual user," said Evelio Suarez, director of toll operations for the Turnpike Enterprise.

That's only the start. In a few years, Suarez said, toll booths on the expressway's lower lanes will be reconfigured to include overhead sensors so drivers won't have to slow down and pass through a booth.

Those not enrolled in SunPass or Pay By Plate will have to use the handful of cash-only tollbooths on the road's far right side.

Suarez also expects that by next summer, SunPass will roll out a windshield sticker that costs $5 to $10 and operates like the current $25 transponder.

"They could roll it out as a SunPass mini," he said.