Agency will study totally automated toll collection

Agency will study totally automated toll collection The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will study replacing toll booths at its bridges and tunnels with a totally automated system that charges drivers using either E-ZPass readers or cameras that can read license plates.
   The agency believes such a study might reduce congestion and air pollution.
   The authority’s board authorized a $9 million study of such a system at its monthly meeting Thursday. The study is expected to take two years, and will look at the operational, financial, technological, organizational, institutional, legal and regulatory issues surrounding a switch to an all-electronic toll collection system. It also will develop schedules, project costs and preliminary designs for infrastructure.
   The port authority said the idea has been tried elsewhere. Toronto’s Highway 407 Express Toll Route has been collecting only electronic tolls via toll tags and video tolling since 1997, and Tampa Fla.’s Lee Roy Selmon Expressway elevated express lanes began using them last November. A similar all-electronic facility is being used on Texas Highway Loop 49 east of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and other states are planning or evaluating such technology.