Will Dallas have the world's largest HOT lane network?

Dallas News reports on plans from the North Texas Tollway Authority, North Central Texas Council of Governments and Texas DoT to embark on a major expansion of tolling in the city.  This includes not only including tolls on all major new projects, but retrofitting HOT lanes on existing highways and converting HOV lanes to HOT lanes where feasible.

The report includes a map depicting an extensive network of future toll lanes (which I suspect means HOT lanes) which will mean the city will possibly have the largest such network of any such city in the world.

DallasNews map of current and proposed tolling network

The article cites the existing toll lane network as including:

- LBJ Freeway (map here)

- DFW Connector

Planned toll lanes:

- IH 35E through Denton County

- IH 30W of downtown Dallas

- SH114

- SH183

HOV lanes replaced with HOT lanes:

- Central Expressway

- I-30 east of downtown

- I-35E south of downtown

- US highway 67

The lanes are expected to enable traffic to be managed during major sporting events or catastrophes, as they can serve as emergency vehicle lanes in such conditions.  

 Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments talked of the problems with a 1985 air crash at DFW “In that case, it was difficult for all of the ambulances and firetrucks to get where they needed to go”.

Opposition comes from politicians in Collin County, which opposes converting HOV lanes to HOT lanes, largely because of a belief that there are enough tolled routes in the county.

What's telling about this report is how pervasive and extensive the proposed network will be.  It will mean that for perhaps the majority of Dallas motorists, the option of paying to use a lane will be the norm for their trips.  

My views on HOT lanes are based on considering the total economic and financial costs and benefits:

- Converting an underutilised HOV lane to a HOT lane increases utility, raises revenue, significantly reduces congestion for its users, and marginally reduces congestion for non-HOT lane users, so it is likely to be beneficial.

- Building a new HOT lane is almost always never going to be financially viable, because the capital costs of the additional lane are unlikely to be recovered from the peak users. A pure toll lane may be marginally more likely to be viable, but again it will only be where congestion is chronically bad that sufficient users will be prepared to pay enough to pay for the extra capacity.

- Toll lanes are likely to be more beneficial than HOV lanes, as HOV lanes tend to provide free benefits to couples travelling together as much as incentivising car pooling.  Far better to ration by price than rewarding chance.

- In the longer term, their value is in demonstrating what pricing can deliver, but if they are not financially viable it means a better solution is to price the whole network, appropriately, which includes looking at the role of fuel taxes.

News briefs - Australia, China, USA (California, Texas, Washington)

Australia - CEO of South Australian borough calls for congestion pricing

Unley is one of the boroughs of Adelaide and according to the Herald Sun, the Unley Council  Chief Executive, Peter Tsokas has proposed to the South Australian State Government, that congestion charging be introduced to raise revenue for public transport.  He specifically called for charges on some roads at peak times to manage congestion.  The reaction has been negative from the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia, although not completely dismissive:

Automotive policy manager Mark Borlace said congestion charges were more suitable in heavily gridlocked traffic zones.  He said the priorities for Adelaide should be improving traffic flow on the city rim, upgrading the north-south transit corridor and improving public transport connections. "When you know that people have ways of going around the congested areas where you don't want cars, then you can have those kind of behavioural things (such as congestion charging)," 

A South Australian state government spokewoman said the government was opposed to tolls and congestion charging.  It's notable that all of the comments under the article were anti congestion charging, except for one that advocated tolling for a new road as long as the toll paid for the road and ended after the debts for constructing the road were paid.

Of course, any debate about congestion charging in Adelaide ought also to include whether it would be an option to replace some existing taxes.

China - Future for congestion charging

Charles Komanoff writes in Streetsblog about his view on where congestion pricing might head in China.   He notes rightly that air pollution is as much an issue as congestion, but revenue generation is not important.

However, the key problems China faces in implementation are around the vested interests and potential losers from any sort of implementation. China needs a comprehensive strategic approach to how road vehicles are taxed and charged, which simply doesn't exists at present.  A key part of this is having the legal framework to enforce any fines or violation notices in a country where traffic safety violation enforcement is haphazard at best.

China has a long way to go, and it could do worse than encourage Hong Kong to implement one of the options extensively studied well over a decade ago, and to encourage at least one mainland city to introduce a cordon charge.

California - Orange County rejects tolling new lanes on I-405

Further to the post I wrote in December on this,  Orange County voted to add an additional lane to the I-405, but rejecting tolling according to the LA Times. It appears that there was little argument made about making highway expansion more sustainable and efficient, but rather that because improvements are partly funded out of a sales tax (don't ask, it's a weird socialist concept that some in the US adopt of dedicated taxes on retail activity to pay for roads).  Voice of OC describes the rather shallow debate.  Whereas NBC reports that the new lanes will cost around US$700 million, which of course will come predominantly not from those using them or directly benefiting from them.  

Texas - HOT lane fines unenforceable

Associated Press, carried by The Trucker, reports that  Houston Metro has no means to legally force non-compliant motorists to pay fines.  Apparently US$740,000 in fines have been issued, but although violators are notified three times of the fines and asked to pay, there is no legal means to enforce it.

This is absolutely laughable as a public policy failure.  Questions ought to be asked.  Who approved for such lanes to be introduced without a legal means to enforce violations?  Was it an oversight by policy makers, or did politicians ignore warnings and decide to press on regardless?  Is this a case of a system being introduced designed by engineers, without advice from lawyers or policy consultants?

Given this is now news, I wouldn't be surprised if, within a few months, the lanes prove to be an abject failure when it becomes well known that the fines are simply requests to pay with no means to do anything about it.

Enforcement is a core component of any electronic free flow tolling system, and needs to include the legal means to treat non-payment of tolls, and fines, as debts that can be recovered like any others.  At the very least, it seems absurd that such fines can't be treated as a penalty for trespass - for unauthorised usage of HOT lanes might be seen as such, if the law would properly define it.

Meanwhile, a report from local TV station KFox14 in El Paso notes that the new toll lanes on the Border Highway are not physically separated from the untolled lanes, but separated by double white lines.  This raises concerns that some road users will weave to avoid detection in the lanes and weave back across the lines, but the answer to this is to enforce the existing prohibition on crossing double white lines on the road. Enforcement of that law is expected to effectively enforce the separate toll lanes.   Hopefully, this should work if done resolutely and sufficiently.

USA - Trucking lobby sceptical about distance based taxation

I read with some amusement an article in The Trucker.Com commenting about Oregon's plans to introduce a vehicle mileage tax.  The key points being:

The American Trucknig Association being concerned about "collection costs, privacy and information security issues, significant potential for evasion and various very difficult institutional issues, including the potential for a lack of interstate interoperability".  Given almost all of these issues are resolvable, I think there may be a bigger concern that the charges set will inevitably mean the heaviest trucks travelling the longest distances will pay more.  The problem is that there is little evidence in the US as to whether there is an appropriate recovery of infrastructure costs now.

What is needed is not resistance, but a reasoned economic debate about the true infrastructure costs of highways and how to efficiently allocate those costs among types of vehicles.  Sadly in the US there is precious little decent analysis about this, and insufficient political will to let charges for road use be based on objective values.  

Washington - State discusses options for future revenues

The Kent Reporter notes that the Washington State Transportation Commission is completing an evaluation of the business case for ways to replace the gas tax with a road usage charge system.

It is intended to report in January 2014 about options to move forward with charging vehicles according to how much they use the roads, rather than fuel, with this work being informed substantially by the trials underway in Oregon.  The findings of work done so far can be found in this presentation, which outlines the key issues very well.  According to this paper, the final report will be issued on 11 January.

Houston prefers HOVs to toll payers

Impact News reports on how Houston Metro (Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County) is raising toll rates on several HOT lanes to reduce peak congestion on the lanes, but paradoxically also increasing the hours during which HOVs can use the lanes.

Typically HOT lanes have evolved in the US as HOV lanes were often undertutilised, and transport authorities wished to get better use by charging other motorists to use the valuable capacity.  Houston has taken quite a different approach, because it appears that its HOV capacity is not  underutilised at peak times.   

As such, its HOT lanes are HOV only at the peak, the economic assumption being that high-occupancy vehicles are a more valuable use of the road space than anyone willing to pay a toll. 

So in response to growing peak congestion, it is increasing the period of exclusive HOV usage and increasing tolls at the either side of that period.

Now the policy position at Houston is that the lanes exist for HOVs first and foremost, which is all very well, except that it isn’t sustainable.  Ultimately, if demand continues to grow to use these lanes, like others, then they will be congested, and either more capacity will be needed, or the lanes will have to be priced – for all users.

I’ve never been convinced that HOV lanes are a good response to the demand/capacity problem of highways, if only because they are predicated on vehicles with multiple occupants having a higher value of time than those with one and on incentivising more efficient use of road space, by making car-sharing more attractive.  However, one survey from the State of Washington indicates that by far the most prevalent car sharing is that of household members, indicating that in many cases use of such lanes is fortuitous rather than planned.   A California PATH Research Report undertaken by the University of California, Berkeley,  indicated that HOV lane systems don’t actually add capacity compared to conventional lanes claiming that “A system with one HOV lane and three general purpose lanes carries the same number of persons per hour as a system with four general purpose lanes”.   That may counter-intuitive, but it reflects actual behaviour rather than the wishful thinking of some policy makers.  

Surely a better approach would be to charge all users. The price per user would be spread across multiple individuals for HOVs, which would give a more equitable indication of the value of the scarce resource (road space) for those using it.  It would also provide a revenue stream that may eventually be leveraged to provide more capacity if pricing gets particularly high.  Meanwhile, raising the HOV threshold to three or more occupants and then four, may be an interim measure, but leaves the question of excluding a wider group of users from the lanes at the time they most want to use them.

Those motorists unhappy about paying have always got a choice, they can use the untolled lanes that everyone else uses, including freight (which almost never is offered similar opportunities to save time and avoid congestion, even though the costs of delay for trucks can be significantly higher than that for car users).

Houston’s approach appears to be “buying time”, but I think the next obvious step is to start charging for HOV use at peak times.   The case for pure HOV lanes is not clear, and the Houston policy will need to be revisited sooner or later.  Bear in mind that Houston Metro is a transit authority, which means it is driven by promoting use of public transport in the city.  Whether that necessarily fits in best with maximising the efficient use of the existing highway network is not clear.  

News briefs - Brazil, UK, USA (California and Texas)

Brazil to let major private highway concession on existing road

Infranews reports that the ANTT (Agência Nacional de Transportes Terrestre - National Transportation Agency) has announced it will be auctioning a 30 year concession for a US$3.4 billion toll road. The route is a 817km section of federal highway BR-040 between Brasília and Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais.

What the auction effectively means is that prospective concessionaires have to bid to finance, build, operate and toll the road, and the offer that will do so, with the lowest tolls, is more likely to win.  Studies on the project indicate it can more than generate enough toll revenue to pay for the upgrade of the highway.  The proposed maximum toll rate is BRL 0.0973 (US$ 0.041) per km, or BRL 9.73 (US$ 4.12) for 100km. The successful concessionaire will have to demonstrate it can operate, maintain and upgrade the road to the required standard at tolls with a discount on those rates.  Recent concessions have been awarded to groups that offered to do other routes with discounts of over 40% on the proposed rates.

This is quite some road, being roughly the distance from London to the top of Great Britain as the crow flies, and being most of the main highway from Brasilia to Rio.  Interesting of course, that it is to be tolled to fund the upgrade.  The section from Rio to Juiz de Fora is already tolled and subject to a concession held by the company Concer, since 1996.

BR-040 in red

Interesting that leasing out large stretches of highway to private companies to upgrade, using tolls, is being implemented by a leftwing government in Brazil.  A similar concept in the United States or the UK would provoke howls of outrage from some quarters.

UK- Vehicle Excise Duty to be made fully electronic

The BBC reports that as of October 2014, the annual (or 6 monthly) "tax disc" that is proof of payment of Vehicle Excise Duty (a tax on vehicle ownership), is to be scrapped.  Proof of payment will now be linked to number plates and Police checks of payment will be enforced by ANPR cameras.

Vehicle Excise Duty is rated on vehicle size (to charge trucks more to reflect wear and tear they impose on the network) and CO2 emissions.  It raises about £6 billion a year in revenue.  None of it is hypothecated for road spending.  The UK Government spends £9 billion a year on roads in England, funding for roads in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is contained within the budgetary contribution to those devolved governments.   Of course, revenue from fuel tax exceeds £27 billion a year as well.

UK - Further comment on scrapping of toll plan for the A14

Guy Bentley at City AM argues for network road pricing to manage congestion and encourage more efficient investment in roads.

AutoExpress reports that the Labour Opposition blames the Government for a cost increase in the project due to delay, and called tolls "half-baked".

USA - California - Orange County debates free lanes over toll lanes

According to the LA Times, there is general agreement that there needs to be additional lanes on the San Diego Freeway (I-405) between Long Beach and Costa Mesa.   The debate is whether they should be HOT or untolled lanes.  Caltrans (the state entity responsible for managing the state highway network) wants toll lanes, on the basis that new capacity should be paid by those directly benefiting from it.  However, six of the boroughs that the freeway passes through want the lanes to be untolled.  

I-405 upgrade corridor

The report said, of a latter signed by the Mayors of the six cities:

"Constructing toll lanes is a breach of trust with Orange County residents," the letter stated, adding that residents agreed to a half-cent sales tax increase that would fund one additional general-purpose lane on the 405 Freeway.

One option is to add a free lane and a HOT lane, but that would seem ridiculous.   The HOT lane would have so little demand to make it not worthwhile.  Either there is money to widen the road or there isn't.

Now I consider sales taxes being used to pay for highways to be economic insanity.  Why should people shopping have to pay for an additional lane on a road many of them do not use regularly and most wont benefit from?  However, if it is there, in part, to pay for it, then it is difficult to argue against, unless of course, the sales tax is cut when the toll lanes open.

The report also says:

City leaders expressed worry that the project would push traffic onto their streets, or that motorists traveling in the toll lanes would find it too difficult to pull off the highway and patronize local businesses.

The first point makes no sense, as the lanes are additional capacity.  They will improve traffic conditions for those who pay, and a little for those who don't.  I also doubt whether those wishing to pay to use the toll lanes (who are more likely to be those on a time constrained trip) have any special interest in pulling off the highway.

If the lanes can be substantially funded by being tolled, they should be, and let sales taxes for transport be cut.

Orange County Transportation Authority website on the project.

USA - Texas - El Paso getting its first toll lanes 

I noted this proposal two years ago.

El Paso is getting its first toll lanes opening soon.  A 9 mile stretch of the I-10 will see one new lane each way from the interchange with US-54 to Zaragoza Road with a toll of US$0.10 per mile. The Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority encouraging "sticker tag" installation of users.  These lanes will be pure toll lanes, with no option for high occupancy vehicles to get a free trip.

Austin

An 11-mile stretch of Austin’s MoPac Boulevard will expand to eight lanes from six to accommodate a growing population.  Neither the Texas Department of Transportation nor any of the local entities involved in the $200 million project are predicting it will transform MoPac into a free-flowing thoroughfare.  The project is the responsibiilty of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.  It is to accommodate population growth.  The key is the extra lanes are pure toll lanes, not HOT lanes.   Carpooling will not give you a free trip, the reason apparently being that the lanes are intended to maintain a minimum level of service.   By not allowing carpooling, it saves on enforcement and means that the lanes are purely managed by price.  

According to the Texas Tribune, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board is hoping it will boost bus patronage as buses will use the new lanes toll free.  Bus routes are to be revised to see how much they can usefully take advantage of the new lanes.  "Registered van pools" and emergency vehicles are also exempt.

The price will be set dynamically with the lowest price being US$0.25, and an average expected to be less than US$4 with trip lengths being a minimum of 5 miles.  However, unlike many toll systems elsewhere, there is no price ceiling.  The price will be as high as is necessary to maintain good free flow conditions.  Of course, those not liking that can use the parallel untolled lanes.

The payment system is a simple DSRC 915MHz system compatible with TxTag, TollTag or EZ-Tag.   Users without tags will be billed to their home address traced by ANPR cameras and accessing of motor vehicle registration databases.

Allied to the project are improved bicycle and pedestrian facilities ( US$5 million, including 3 miles of new path and 4 miles of footpaths).

The MoPac website says...

The project is being financed through a unique partnership with the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). CAMPO and TxDOT have approved grants totaling $199.5 million to fund the project. As part of the partnership arrangement, the Mobility Authority has agreed to set up a Regional Infrastructure Fund, and over the next 25 years, will deposit $230 million into the fund. CAMPO can then allocate money from the fund to other transportation projects in the region.

So the lanes are taxpayer funded, but will they raise enough money to recoup that expenditure?

News Briefs - Hungary, India, USA

Hungary - Budapest unlikely to introduce congestion charge in short term

Following on from the report last year that the Hungarian Government had suspended development of a congestion pricing scheme for Budapest (which had received money for its metro system from the European Commission contingent on introduction of such a scheme), Caboodle reports that the Budapest Public Transport Centre, CEO David Vitezy, says that it wont happen in the next two to three years.

He says that until there is more public transport capacity, it can't be done.  He wants the fourth metro line (under construction) and some new tram lines built first.  I'm slightly curious about this, given Budapest functioned for many years with the existing public transport network and much less car traffic, and has had relatively static/declining public transport usage for some years.

However, I suspect the politics around this are too difficult for now.

India - Andhra Pradesh state may establish hypothecated roads fund

According to The Hindu, the Andhra Pradesh Road Development Corporation (APRDC) is considering replicating what has been done in four states (Assam, Kerala, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh), by setting up a dedicated roads fund which would receive revenue from motoring specific taxes.  The primary reason being to allow for better quality and longer term funding decisions on road infrastructure, than ad hoc annual funding decisions competing with other public spending.   In addition, it is intended to support the autonomy and accountability of the APRDC in delivering improvements to the network.   Taxes on motor vehicle ownership and fuel, tolls, and other revenue sources may be dedicated to the roads fund.  A key priority is to fund major safety improvements to reduce the high accident and road fatality rate on the state's roads.

USA - Texas - article on tolling

The Texas Tribune has an excellent four part series of articles on toll roads in the state.

- Part One. Includes an interactive map of toll roads in Texas, which looks like not much given the size of the state, but are clustered around major cities.

- Part Two.  Describing the rise of tolling in Texas.  Noting that fuel taxes have not risen in Texas in 20 years, that more than 150 miles of toll roads have been built in the past six years and the growth in private sector interest in building, owning and operating such roads.

- Part Three. Focusing on HOT and other toll lanes in Texas.

- Part Four.  On the failed Trans-Texas Corridor proposal and what came after.

News briefs - Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa, USA

Indonesia - Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada building more toll roads

The Jakarta Globe reports that Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada, the privately owned infrastructure firm, is planning to spend around US$200 million (Rp.2 trillion) on new projects.  It has a 62.5% share of a a 22.8-kilometer toll road, connecting Antasari, in South Jakarta, and Depok in West Java.

Philippines - Call to scrap VAT on tolls and subsidies for private toll roads

Business Mirror reports that Senator Ralph Recto has called for an end to the 12% VAT on tolls to ameliorate expected increases in tolls.  He suggests this would be preferable than plans to subsidise more toll roads to encourage private sector investment.  At present toll road operators have to apply for increases in tolls from the Toll Regulatory Board and are expecting to increase tolls by 10-33% this year.  His view is that if toll road operators could price the roads to generate a return that they could fully recover, the need for subsidies could be avoided.

South Africa - SANRAL CEO calls for acceptance of court decision

Engineering News reports that the South African National Roads Agency Ltd. Chief Executive, Nazir Alli, has called for opponents to tolling to "accept" the decision by the Constitutional Court to set aside the "interim interdict" granted to the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (a lobby group opposed to tolling urban roads in the country), stopping tolls on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP).

He said that without tolls, there wouldn't be the money to pay for major road improvements and claimed that the money for roads would need to involve cutting subsidies to public transport instead.   He claimed that government did not have enough money to pay for building and upgrading all of the roads required, and that much of South Africa's roads are not tolled.

USA- New York  - Could New York introduce congestion pricing more readily now?

Keystone politics points out that Manhatten now, effectively, has a cordon of automatic number plate recognition cameras, on all bridges, run by the NYPD.  So, perhaps, the costs of congestion pricing may be slightly less than otherwise thought?

USA - Texas - Groups urge boycott of USA's fastest toll road

Texas SH130 is now the USA's fastest road with a speed limit of 85mph, but the website of TV station KXAN reports that groups "Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom" (TURF) and "Texans for Accountable Government" (TAG) are urging motorists to boycott the road.

Opposition appears to be based on:

- Safety fears at the high speed limit;

- Little efforts taken to avoid feral hogs from being a collision risk;

- Xenophobia (because the road is owned by Cintra, which is of course Spanish).

TURF is a contradictory organisation, that is opposed to tolls because roads "should be free".  It claims to "work tirelessly to secure a pro-freedom, pro-taxpayer, fiscally solvent, freely-accessible public road policy".  Quite how making taxpayers pay for roads they don't use, and opposing user pays is pro-freedom and pro-taxpayer, is rather curious.  Indeed forcing taxpayers to pay for something they don't use is quite socialist, opposing privately owned roads is as well.   I can empathise with concerns around eminent domain and improving the quality of government spending, but opposing Cintra because it is foreign is simply mindless nationalism.  Should foreigners stop buying goods and services produced by Texan firms?

TAG has a broader political focus saying it is "dedicated to safe guarding individual liberty, protecting personal privacy and property rights, election integrity, safe water, and electing representatives, not bureaucrats, to office", but it was far from easy to find anything on tolls on its website.

Texas - leading toll road state in the USA?

Is Texas the king state for tolling in the US?

A story from TV station KENS5 on its website seems to suggest this.  Some key points:

- Tolling is the default option as a source of funding for major road projects, as long as it is technically feasible to do so;

- Fuel taxes in Texas have not increased in 20 years, so revenue has been substantially eroded by inflation and engine efficiency (75% of fuel tax revenue is hypothecated into the state Highway Trust Fund);

- A report in 2009 said Texas needs US$4 billion more spending per year to prevent congestion worsening (although I'd argue congestion pricing might make a major dent on that);

- Since 2006, Texas has built 150 miles of toll roads and has 100 miles more planned (this includes HOT lanes);

- Texas legislature authorised seven PPP toll roads in 2011.

The philosophy appears to be that tolls are preferable to raising taxes, including taxing fuel.  There is a sStrong belief that user pays is fair.

Mike Perez, the McAllen city manager said  “The feeling is if you want to use it, you should pay for it,” ...“That’s what I see in McAllen. There’s a kind of hesitancy toward ‘Let's all go together and pay for it so 20 percent can use it.’”

That's a point to respect, all new road projects benefit a minority of motorists, so why should all pay for it, when those who use it can be charged directly?

The growth in private investment is notable too:

Cintra, a toll operator based in Spain, is the lead company in three large Texas toll projects, including the state’s first privately operated toll road, a segment of State Highway 130 from Austin to Seguin that opened in October. The terms of all three contracts allow Cintra to collect tolls on the roads for roughly 50 years.Nicolas Rubio, the president of Cintra’s American arm, based in Austin, said contracts for such long periods are the only way companies like his can recoup the large upfront investment they make in building the roads and maintaining them.“When you really look at these projects, the bulk of the revenues are back-ended, and you need to be patient until you can be able to get back that money,” Rubio said.

Comment

States across the US are coming to realise that with the difficulty in raising fuel taxes, there will have to be new sources of revenue to pay for roads and new arrangements to finance, build and own them.   Texas has grasped the obvious option of simply using tolls more frequently, and to be fair the projects that have progressed have lent themselves to tolling.   It has embraced user pays, but I question whether more may be done with tolls to manage peak demand, and what happens when conventional tolls cannot be stretched further.  That's when debate must move onto VMT/MBUF/distance based charging, which will raise the hackles of some in terms of privacy.  Yet a state that purportedly is led by politicians who embrace private enterprise and user pays should embrace more user pays on roads, and even the commercialisation and private investment in existing roads.

In the meantime, good on Texas for embracing tolls, may it continue and inspire other states to see how far they can practically use tolls to pay for new road capacity.   The question being how far it is efficient and effective to toll new roads, but not untolled ones.

An interactive map of toll roads in Texas is here.

News briefs - Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, USA

Australia - Transport Reform Network calls for treating highways as utilities

Supply Chain Review reports that the cross-sector lobby group, Transport Reform Network (TRN), is calling for roads to be managed more like the electricity and water sectors, as a utility.  It was commenting in the context of a lack of funds to address problematic railway level crossings.  TRN suggests that any reform needs to look comprehensively at ownership and fuel taxes as well as tolls,  it is more concerned that talk of road pricing isn't about "bolting on" a solution to existing structures, but is part of a more comprehensive reform of highways across Australia.

This is quite enlightened and actually far beyond how most commentators, lobbyists and governments think of roads.

New Zealand - NZTA enforcing tolls against recidivist violators

The NZ Herald reports that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) successfully enforced a prosecution against a man who failed to pay NZ$5000 (US$4109) in tolls on the Northern Gateway toll road north of Auckland (the only state highway toll road in the country).  

Robert Masaberg was convicted in North Shore District Court of 20 charges of failing to pay a toll and was ordered to pay $1156 in fines, court and prosecution costs.He owes $5181 in unpaid tolls for the Northern Gateway Toll Road, unpaid administration fees and additional costs connected with attempts to get him repay his debt.

It was reported nearly two years ago that no one had been prosecution for non-payment, it is clear this policy has changed.  Three other prosecutions are to be pursued for evaders.   NZTA says the non-compliance rate for the toll road is 4%, which after four years of operation remains perhaps higher than would be expected.

South Africa - Times reports on allegations of poor practices by SANRAL

The Sunday Times of South Africa reports on a court case that claims the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) has implemented the Gauteng toll system unlawfully, and in a way that is "disproportionately and unjustifiably expensive".  It undertook a three month investigation that raises questions about procurement practices that seem to favour certain suppliers, including a consultancy (TolPlan) that it claims has a vested interest in the promotion of projects as it works on the feasibility studies, tenders for development and engineering work on the projects.   It also claims that Kapsch won the tender for the toll system based on a minimum level of "black empowerment" shareholding of the firm set up for the contract, but has bought out most of that black shareholding (and will receive more revenue as a result).   Noting that the Kapsch led firm will receive around 25% of the tolling revenue (which if true, is comparatively high).   

The story is that it is a "cozy club" which implies a potential element of either corruption or sloppy mismanagement by SANRAL.  SANRAL CEO Nazir Alli admits that it "looks" like Tolplan had a conflict of interest by adjudicating on tenders and then working on the projects themselves, and another manager noted that SANRAL accepts consultancy recommendations "99%" of the time.

Clearly allegations of this kind raise opposition to tolling in the country, if the sense is that those promoting tolls are doing so out of personal financial interest.  The more that looks like being the case, the more damage is obviously done to plans to expand tolling the country, and damage both to SANRAL and those companies which engage in such practices with full awareness of what is going on.

UK - MP suggests tolling road to pay for maintenance

Whilst government considers reform of the highway sector, the Bournemouth Echo reports that one MP has floated tolling an existing road, that needs a £26 million (US$39m) major repair which is currently unfunded.  The MP is Chris Chope, who represents Christchurch and is from the Conservative Party. The road is the A338 Bournemouth  spur road, the main road from the east and north into the city.  The idea has been scorned, no less than because it would mean motorists paying to use an existing road, and risks substantial diversions of traffic onto parallel routes or dissuading visitors altogether.

USA - Pennsylvania - fully electronic tolling open option for congestion pricing

The self-styled "liberal" news-site Keystone Politics comments approvingly about the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's plan to convert manual tolls to fully electronic tolling, saying the key advantage (beyond removing people from "dehumanizing" work) would be to allow for higher tolls at peak times, to reduce congestion and encourage public transport usage.  The plan is to replace all toll booths over five years, and frankly the sooner the better.  

USA - Texas - toll tag options

The Waco Tribune has a useful article on toll tag account options in Texas.  It outlines how there are three toll road authorities in the state, each offering toll road accounts that are effective on all toll roads in Texas (TxTag, provided by Texas DoT. TollTag, provided by North Texas Tollway Authority.  EZ Tag, provided by Harris County Toll Road Authority.  It describes how non-tag toll prices can be between 33-50% more than tag product prices.  

News briefs - Australia, Denmark, Indonesia, Italy, USA

Australia - Heavy vehicle charges review starts

Transport and Logistics News Australia reports on how the National Transport Commission is consulting on proposed changes to the heavy vehicle charges system (most of which are about how the charges are calculated).

The article is perhaps more interesting for its summary of how Australia charges trucks to use its roads. It is not road pricing or tolls, but a reasonable means of trying to be as efficient as possible in using fuel tax and ownership taxes.

Rather than the widely used non-system of political/bureaucratic guesses as to what might be charged, it involves calculating costs attributable to heavy vehicles, costs attributable to all vehicles and then setting charges to recover from heavy vehicles their share of infrastructure costs. 60% are recovered from fuel tax and 40% from vehicle ownership taxes.  Fuel tax is collected at the Federal level, but ownership taxes at the state level.

The principles applied are as below:

• Full recovery of allocated infrastructure costs while minimising both the over and under recovery from any class of vehicle;
• Cost-effectiveness of pricing instruments;
• Transparency;
• The need to balance administrative simplicity, efficiency and equity (e.g. impact on regional and remote communities/access);
• The need to have regard to other pricing applications such as light vehicle charges, tolling and congestion;
• Ongoing cost recovery in aggregate;
• The removal of cross-subsidies between vehicle classes.

Now without distance and weight based charging, the system is going to be very much second best, but this system for setting charges is more advanced than that used to set charges in much of North America and Europe.   It is, at least, based on setting clear objectives with the need for transparent economic analysis to be used to base charges, and it does provide a framework which could be easily adapted to weight/distance based road user charging.

Denmark - Environmental Economic Council calls for road pricing to replace ownership and purchase taxes

The Copenhagen Post reports that the head of Det Miljøøkonomiske Råd, the environmental economic council, Hans Jørgen Whitta-Jacobsen, has suggested replacing the extortionate vehicle ownership taxes with a distance based road pricing system.  Vehicle purchase taxes cost 105% of the purchase value of a car up to 79,000 DKK (US$13,778) and 180% for every Kroner of value above that.  This imposes an enormous tax on the purchase of a new car.   Ownership taxes start at DKK120 (US$21) for the most fuel efficient diesel cars up to DKK15090 (US$2632) for the least efficient.  All of this makes car ownership expensive, and so doesn't target driving on the most congested roads (so penalises rural areas and those who without jobs accessible by public transit, walking or cycling).   His biggest concern is that such taxes discourage motorists from buying newer, more fuel efficient low emission vehicles.

Indonesia - PT Jasa Marga expecting increased revenue from growing network

The Jakarta Post reports that PT Jasa Marga, Indonesia's largest state owned toll road company, is expecting a 16.1% revenue increase this year, worth a total of US$671 million.   It has a network of 545km of toll roads with four new toll roads to open this calendar year (Nusa Dua-Ngurah Rai-Benoa road in Bali, Kebon Jeruk-Ciledug road in Jakarta, Gempol-Pandaan road in East Java and the Ungaran-Bawen road in Central Java). 

Jasa Marga is looking to facilitate up to 1.2 billion vehicle trips nationwide in 2013, 9.1 percent higher from the 1.1 billion vehicles last year.  80% of trips are on toll roads in greater Jakarta, indicating the sheer density of usage in that city.  Notable in the report is the roll out of the new e-Toll pass, which involves the use of a DSRC on-board unit, and a contactless smart card with prepaid credit that can be topped up.  Only 11% of transactions are at present using this technology, the intention is to lift this to 30% within two years.    Now the toll booths with this technology are not free flow, the tag activates the barrier arm, but the intention is to expand the number of toll booths that are electronically equipped to 111 by the end of 2013.   I would have thought that given the chronic congestion in Indonesia, lifting up take of electronic tolling to 50% of trips within two years should be a realistic goal.

Italy - Atlantia diversifies into airports

According to Reuters, Atlantia, Italy's largest toll road operator, is to buy Gemina, the airport operator best known for owning Aeroporti di Roma (which owns Rome's Fiumicino and Ciampino Airports).  The report said:

The deal will allow Atlantia, which also operates about 1,800 km of motorways in Brazil and Chile, to branch out into airport concessions in Latin America. It will not, however, generate meaningful cost synergies, a Milan-based analyst said.

USA - California- Santa Clarita (LA) looking at tolls to help fund new lanes

The website of radio station KHTS reports that Santa Clarita city (part of the LA metro area) is investigating whether to accelerate the widening of the I-5 freeway (the main northern freeway out of LA) between Highway 14 and Castaic by tolling the additional lanes.   The project would cost $310 million and the city has 75% of the funds needed to progress it (when divided over 30 years), and is hoping tolling the additional lanes may provide the remainder.  The proposal is to make the project into a PPP, with a private concessionaire recovering the cost over 35 years, using tolls on the new lanes only. The intention is for pricing to be dynamic maintaining a minimum speed of 45mph.  Curiously, the proposal maintains the HOT lane concept, by keeping the lanes free for vehicles with three or more occupants, which seems crazy if the key desire is to raise revenue.  The only purpose to keep HOT lanes is consistency, but beyond buses there is little good reason for new lanes to be free for any cars.   There is sense in applying the HOT principle if the lanes are underutilised HOV lanes, but why should well occupied cars occupying the same road space get access for free?  What evidence is there that this actually changes behaviour on any meaningful scale?  (besides a car with three people in it can split a toll three-ways surely)?

USA - Texas - Cintra wins concession for North Tarrant Express expansion

International Construction reports that Ferrovial subsidiary Cintra has won the concession to build the North Tarrant Express expansion in Texas.  Cintra is to be responsible for developing a 6.5 mile extension, with the state responsible for another 3.6 miles, but Cintra responsible for the tolling, operation and maintenance of the lot, with the total cost of both segments being US$1.38 billion.   The contract involves building two new managed lanes which will be tolled, but also the maintenance and operation of the untolled lanes.

The report says that "the Cintra-led consortium, NTE Mobility Partners Segments 3 LLC, also involves Meridiam Infrastructure and Dallas Police and Fire Pension System"

News briefs - Indiana, New Zealand, SANEF, Texas

Indiana

As it spends down the proceeds from the privatisation of the Indiana toll road, the state is now contemplating how to maintain funding for its highway network.  NWI Politics reports that approaches being considered include more toll road projects, using PPPs and a vehicle mileage tax (VMT) to supplement or replace the gasoline tax.  Both major candidates for Governor are promising tax reductions, which will not make it easier to increase gasoline tax to pay for roads.  One can only hope that the state can pull together a plan that it can sell to voters.  Considering a mix of tolls where viable, and a longer term transition to VMT is likely to be following the steps of many others.

Meanwhile, a report from NWI Times notes that 65% of users of the Indiana toll road are out of state, indicating how important the toll really is to ensuring that users of the road pay for it.  Motor registration taxes and gas taxes for such vehicles are more likely to be predominantly paid out of state.

New Zealand

Having recently restructured its national distance-weight based road user charging system so that it charges by maximum allowable vehicle weight, not average vehicle loading, New Zealand is finding a few feeling unfairly hit by the changes.

The change made some policy sense in that it meant that there were no longer issues of enforcing vehicles according to actual weight (when this would vary from trip to trip) and vehicle owners would no longer need to buy supplementary road user charges licences for blocks of 1000km for heavier weights.  Keeping it at the maximum allowable also incentivises more efficient vehicle usage, but it does mean some lose out - mainly those with larger vehicles which permanently carry much smaller weights.   The Timaru Herald reports on Mervyn Tyree, who owns a customised bus converted into a motor home that has a maximum permissible weight of 21 tonnes, even though it only ever weighs 14.7 tonnes.  He is facing an increase in road user charges of nearly 100%, even though he isn't actually carrying any more or creating any more damage to the roads.

I did road user charging policy in NZ when it was actual weights, and whilst it was inherently attractive to simplify the system by moving to maximum weights, it was expected to create these sorts of problems and in particular, problems for trucks that would never carry the full load for much of their trips (milk tankers).

The only way this could be avoided is by having a special vehicle category for those which are no longer capable of carrying the full load in ordinary usage.  Converting a bus to a motor home effectively does that, because Mervyn probably can't fit enough people in to reach the 21 tonne limit.

SANEF's Standard & Poors credit rating reconfirmed

SANEF's Standard & Poors credit rating dropped to BBB in July, and this rating has been reconfirmed by S & P on 10 September according to Reuters.  The outlook remains negative.

The statement included this:

Sanef operates the third-largest interconnected toll road network in France.  Although the company is exposed to variations in traffic volumes, it benefits  from a strong competitive position; favorable concession agreements, including  yearly inflation-linked tariff increases; high profitability; and positive  free cash flows. We consider the risk of acquisitions and diversification to  be low. These strengths are partly offset by Sanef's high indebtedness, and its relatively rigid dividend policy.

The rating is directly related to the rating given to its primary shareholder, Abertis, which is also BBB.

Texas

The Examiner writes a fairly critical article about the forthcoming SH130 toll road in Texas, which is to be the first foreign privately owned toll road in the state.  It's not particularly flattering, which is unfortunate, as Texas does sometimes have the image of being a state that believes in a free market approach, but this article gives the impression of an underlying xenophobia around the road being foreign owned, and a belief that fuel taxation is inherently fairer.   The article descends into little more than rhetorical polemics with this:

So there can be no doubt that the state is cozying up with big business to incentivize truckers and motorists to use Cintra’s tollway, and effectively grant Cintra a monopoly for the next 50 years through various revenue sharing schemes and other incentives, like slowing free alternatives and ensuring any expansion of I-35 will also be tolled, not free. God help Texas with such sinister agents in charge of transportation. Eventually, you won’t have a choice but to pay.

Lippincott was sure to dodge the glaring hypocrisy of Governor Rick Perry, who is so obviously starving the gas tax in order to hand Texas roads to his corporate buddies. Perry claims to be all about state sovereignty, the primary subject of his latest book, Fed-Up, while selling off Texas to the highest bidder.

Terri Hall, the writer "is the founder of the San Antonio Toll Party and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. She started a taxpayer revolt upon learning of plans to convert Highway 281 into a tollway and charge taxpayers again for what they already built and paid for."

I am curious as to whether Ms Hall actually believes that when you build anything that you don't ever have to pay anything more to ensure that it retains its value.  A common mistake in economics that is used too often in arguing against tolls.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal notes that the State of Texas receives $100 million for approving the 85mph speed limit for the toll road, $33 million more than had the concession been for an 80mph speed limit road.   Quite simply the concessionaire believes it will get more users at a higher speed, but safety advocates and opponents to privately owned roads believe it is "reckless".

Texas free flow tolling violations

A report in KeraNews indicates that the proportion of users of North Texas Tollway Authority toll roads that violate by not having a toll tag and not paying invoices sent in the post is 1%, and Texas is about to crack down on them.  The approach appears to be to treat it as a civil debt, and seek recovery like other debts, but also to treat violators as trespassers by allowing such vehicles to be impounded on the toll roads if stopped.  The violator with the highest debt owes $182,000.

News briefs - Australia, China, Indonesia, Macquarie Atlas Roads, Texas, UK

Australia - New South Wales government denies interest in congestion pricing

AAP reports that NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay has said that the State Government has ruled out a congestion tax, but is considering implementing distance-based tolling.   Certainly it is clear that NSW is considering reforming toll roads around Sydney so that pricing is more closely related to a proxy for distance, but it is less clear as to whether the state is interested in a wider roll out of distance based charging to replace ownership taxes.

China - Standard & Poors affirms BB- rating and negative outlook for toll road investor Road King

Reuters reports that property and toll road investment company Road King maintains its rating with with S&P.  Property is the dominant factor for the relatively low rating and negative outlook.  On toll roads it reports a more optimistic side to the firm:

Road King's stable operating performance and the sizable cash flows from its toll road business support the rating. The company currently derives more than 80% of its toll revenue from its expressway projects, including the Longcheng Expressway it acquired early in 2011 and which commenced operation in July 2012. We expect Road King's toll road business to continue to provide stable cash flows in the next one to two years, underpinned by its stable profit sharing ratios. 

Indonesia - Longer toll road concessions to be allowed

Tempo Interactive reports that the Indonesian Government is to change the law to extend the maximum toll road management permits for private companies from 40 to 50 years.

The Jakarta Post reports that a 73km toll road is to be built in North Bali from Kuta to Seririt at a price of US$872 million.  The project is intended to open up a wide area for tourism and development, and is linked to plans for a new airport at the north of the island.

Macquarie Atlas Roads posts half year loss and further asset devaluations

Business Spectator reports that Macquarie Atlas Roads has posted a loss of A$75.2 million (US$77.7 million) in the six month to June 30 2012.  This is an improvement on the A$106.4 million (US$110 million) loss for the same period last year.

The A$33.4 million fall in the value of investments comprised a loss of A$26 million on the Autoroutes Paris-Rhine-Rhone (APRR) toll road in France compared to a profit of A$11 million in 2011; a loss of A$7.4 million on the Dulles Greenway toll road in the US compared to a loss of A$10.8 million in 2011; and no loss on the Chicago Skyway toll road in the US compared to a loss of A$17.5 million in 2011.

There was no loss booked for the Chicago Skyway in the first half of 2012 because the carrying value of the road had been reduced to nil.

The Australian reports that the company expects to release a dividend next year.  It also noted:

Macquarie Atlas Roads said the increased losses partly reflected losses on interest rate swaps and higher debt-related amortisation.

Macquarie Atlas Roads said proportionate revenue from its roads rose by 1.4 per cent to $330.8 million in the first half of 2012 despite a 1.9 per cent fall in traffic volumes.

Revenue was boosted by toll increases.

"Macquarie Atlas Roads' portfolio of toll roads has continued to generate positive revenue and EBITDA growth during the period despite difficult economic conditions in Europe and the US," chief executive Peter Trent said.

Texas - new toll road to have highest speed limit in US

The Texas Weekly reports that Texas State Highway 130  (which will be a toll road) will have a speed limit of 85mph (about 137km/h), which will be the fastest in the USA.  Some advocates of private toll roads have promoted the idea that roads could be built to enable relatively safe driving at faster speeds, and motorists could be charged the price to allow it.  In Texas, it looks like it will happening, albeit with an increment of only 5mph.

Meanwhile, the Statesmen argues that the new speed limit is partly about enhancing the viability of the toll road, which includes lowering the speed limit on the existing highway from 65mph to 55mph, even though it will be safer (because the new road will be between the north and southbound lanes of the existing lanes).   Is it a conspiracy to make the new lanes more likely to be financially positive or just coincidence?

UK - Dartford Crossing manual tolling to be gone by 2014

The Brentwood Weekly News reports that the UK Government has announced that it is spending £25 million (US$40 million) to undertake a range of improvements to the tolled Dartford Crossing routes, including removal of manual toll booths as part of a programme to make the highway a fully electronic free flow tollway.  The route is notorious for being a bottleneck in both directions, in part due to the queues at toll booths.  The UK Highways Agency is hoping to have removed the manual toll booths by October 2014.

So what about rental cars and tolls?

It's one of those neglected issues when road pricing comes along, which is to consider what happens when a hirer of a rental car uses an electronic free flow tolling facility and doesn't pay.  The obvious answer may be that the rental car firm should be liable, as it would be for any parking offences, but it wasn't obvious in Harris County, Texas.

The Houston Chronicle reports on a settlement between Enterprise Rent-A-Car and the Harris County Toll Road Authority of US$1.15 million in unpaid tolls and fines.  The problem being a combination of Texas law and the rental contract.  Rental companies could provide details of the hirer within 30 days to the Authority and make it the Authority's responsibility to pursue the hirer, which of course proved to be problematic.

You see elsewhere most rental car firms take credit card details that they retain to cover any such fines or fees.  However, this law encourages the rental car firm to pass on the responsibility, so that it doesn't face either the administrative cost of processing the payment or the bad customer relations in charging it.  Enterprise thought it could avoid responsibility, but eventually relented.

Enterprise now does exactly what I described above, which of course it should have done so in the first place had it bothered to see business practice elsewhere.

Enterprise now works with a vendor that ensures all of its roughly 1 million vehicles' license plates nationwide are listed in an account. The vendor pays the county when HCTRA's toll cameras pick up a plate on that list. The vendor then charges the tolls, with a fee, to the renter's credit card, said company spokeswoman Laura Bryant.

Bryant said the process is working, not only for tolls, but for red-light camera fines and parking tickets, too.

"That doesn't mean the process is perfect, but we're doing everything we can to make it as good as it can be," she said. "This has been a huge learning curve for everybody."

For a twentieth of the cost of this settlement, Enterprise could have got some consultants in (!) to develop the business solution to this problem based on best practice elsewhere.

Avis apparently settled for US$190,000 four years ago, and Hertz has toll tags installed in its Texas based vehicles effectively enabling it to be an easy part of the toll payment transaction at the end of the hire.  

Conclusion

If the law makes it clear that vehicle owners are responsible for tolls, then it is up to rental car firms to ensure that their contractual and payment solutions enable them to pass on these costs.  Toll tags in areas with extensive toll networks should enable toll transactions to be looked up and added to accounts, and the use of credit cards can ensure any residual transactions can be paid for.  With electronic free flow tolling increasing in reach and scope, it will become increasingly important for rental vehicle and vehicle leasing firms to find ways to ensure that liabilities for such charges can be recovered from those who initiate them.

News shorts - Florida, India, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas

Florida pursuing tolled upgrade of existing highway

The Florida Times-Union/Jacksonville.com reports that the Florida Department of Transportation is to commission an upgrade of the First Coast Outer Beltway that will see it widened to a grade separated four lanes highway with tolls.  Tolling will be done on a segmented basis, with rates of US$0.20-US$0.60 for cars per segment, effectively creating a distance based toll along the highway.  Florida Turnpike Enterprise (a business unit of Florida DoT) will finance the project estimated to cost US$230 million which will be recovered from tolls which will be entirely electronic free flow using the established SunPass system.

Despite criticism from some quarters, based on a vote in 1988 that saw Jacksonville abolish tolls in favour of a small sales tax (an economically regressive and irrational measure) "Florida Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad said the current sales taxes and gas taxes that fund transportation are not sufficient to build something like the Outer Beltway"

Potholes on Indian toll road highlights poor incentives

The Times of India reports that "The Ghoti-Padhga toll-way stretch on the Mumbai-Agra national highway has been ridden with potholes, for nearly the past one month, making it difficult for motorists to drive through the affected sections".

Apparently, the company responsible is simply uninterested in maintenance with the report continuing:  "maintenance was looked upon as a part of expenses rather than looking towards it as re-investment for earnings and hence the proposal had not received a response till date".

Such scant regard for some basic standards on a toll highway indicates an appalling failure on behalf of the procurement and contracting regime for the road.  However, a market led approach would suggest that motorists will increasingly abandon this toll road on the basis that it isn't worth the money.  On the other hand, if the development of PPPs for toll roads in India is on the basis that the private sector will maintain minimum standards of service, then there need to be constraints on such behaviour built into concessions.

New York - Governor "considering" Sam Schwartz's tolling plan

The New York Observer reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo is apparently "reviewing the proposal" of former New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Sam Schwartz to reform tolling on crossing adjacent to the city in the state.  I wrote extensively about the proposal, which is adamantly NOT called congestion pricing, because it effectively delivers an integrated approach to tolling of major crossings in New York, reducing the prices for trips more distant from Manhatten and introducing tolls on untolled East River crossings.

The article rightly says it is far too early to say whether it will get support, but it is encouraging that the Governor at least appears to be open minded on the issue.  It has the potential to raise more revenue and help reduce traffic congestion, but it also will balance support from those who will pay less on some crossings and those who will pay more or start to pay on others.

North Carolina story shows importance of quality control in enforcement

TV station WRAL, Raleigh North Carolina reports on the case of Jerry Hester, a man who was pursued for enforcement of an unpaid toll bill for the Triangle Expressway, because of human error that mistook the letter N for the letter M.   It appears it took the intervention of a consumer advocacy TV programme (5 On Your Side) to get it resolved with "NC Quick Pass" - the operational arm of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority.

Electronic free flow tolling is being rolled out across the US, although it is some years behind the likes of Australia which has had it now for well over a decade.  Unfortunately, some key lessons learned from free flow systems elsewhere don't always seem to have been embraced.  In this case, it should have been easy for enforcement appeal staff to double check the number plate image and eliminate the penalty altogether, rather than it remaining in the escalating bureaucracy of enforcement.

It certainly shouldn't take a TV programme to highlight such a problem.  This is standard best practice in the tolling industry.

Ohio Turnpike Director advocating wider use of revenues

Columbus Morning Call reports that the Ohio Turnpike Director Richard Hodges is advocating a law change to allow surplus revenues from the toll road to be spent on transportation projects in the state further than 1 mile away from the road.   It appears to be driven by concerns about the growing reserve in the accounts of the Turnpike, which could reflect a lack of useful projects that can be funded from surplus revenues.  Of course, if the turnpike is privatised, this will effectively be the return on the capital asset value that could be distributed to shareholders.

The report also summarises the financial position of the road:

The turnpike, which has $50 million in its reserve, expects to generate $270 million in revenue this year, the newspaper reports. Its operating expenses stand at about $122 million and the turnpike will spend about $90 million on capital projects this year.

Ohio Turnpike thwarts trucking scam

The Trucker reports on how the Ohio Turnpike has stopped a scam whereby truckers avoided paying the full toll price by lying about "lost" toll tickets.  Being a closed toll system (whereby toll tickets are issued at the start, and used to calculate the total toll price depending what exit the vehicle departs from), there was scope to cheat, as described on the website below:

The scam worked this way: A trucker taking a ticket at the turnpike's entry near Indiana would travel across Ohio and claim the ticket was lost when he hit the last interchange before Pennsylvania.

The trucker would pay $44 for the "lost" ticket, the same he'd pay if he had turned in the ticket. After delivering his load to the east, the trucker would head back on the turnpike.

Instead of crossing the state and paying another $44, the trucker would leave the turnpike several exits before the Indiana border and feed the "lost" ticket to an automated fare machine. Toll tickets don't designate east or west travel.

To the machine, the trucker had traveled only a short distance from the Indiana border and would pay, depending on the exit, a toll less than $10, turnpike officials said.

Of course the state is contemplating privatising this toll road, which would raise the incentive to plug any potential holes in revenue, most likely by better incentivising electronic tolling accounts.

Texas concerns about enforcement of free flow tolls against Mexican vehicles

The Texas Tribune reports that officials in El Paso, Texas and some other Texas authorities are increasingly concerned about the inability to enforce violations of tolls on electronic free flow toll facilities on vehicles registered in Mexico.

In short, this is an issue that has been an emerging concern in Europe which faces much of the same issues around cross-border enforcement of such offences.

At the moment Mexican vehicles appear to be a very small proportion of vehicles on Texan roads, but the fear is that more free flow tolling offers opportunities for free-loading.  One idea proposed by El Paso Mayor  John Cook would be the ability to impound vehicles with such fines - effectively the London approach to those who persistently evade the congestion charge.

The report notes:

The situation that some El Paso officials fear is already emerging in a border community more than 800 miles away. The first portion of State Highway 550 opened in Cameron County last year. When completed, the toll road will connect the Port of Brownsville to U.S. Highway 77.

Cars from Mexico on the road, minimal so far but expected to increase, are not being billed, said David Garcia, the assistant coordinator for the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority. 

One option would be to enable the border crossing to also be a check for such liabilities, but enabling that is likely to be far from easy.