Evaluation of Impacts of Open Road Tolling on Main-Line Toll Plaza

Implementation of open road tolling (ORT) can provide better performance for a toll collection facility than the use of a conventional toll plaza design. Improvements have been sought to decrease toll transaction times so that drivers experience reduced delays or none at all. Although intelligent transportation systems technology such as automatic vehicle identification in the form of electronic toll collection (ETC) is a concept that has revolutionized toll collection, with the ever-increasing traffic volumes on toll facilities, more innovative methods such as ORT are being deployed. Agencies around the world have implemented ORT, and some have integrated express (high-speed) ETC lanes in their normal plaza design. A main-line toll plaza in Orlando, Florida, was renovated following an ORT design concept. The plaza was expanded to include express ETC lanes separated from the cash payment lanes by a barrier. Data were collected before construction, during construction, and after construction was completed. Analysis showed that average reduced delays for manual cash customers equaled 49.8% and for automatic coin machine customers, 55.3%; and the speed in the express ETC lanes increased by 57%. To evaluate the benefits further, forecast scenario results from a toll plaza microsimulation model, TPSIM, were analyzed with positive conclusions. An analysis of crash data showed a 22% drop in total crashes at the plaza and a 26% drop in the plaza's area of influence. This case study provided conclusive results that implementing ORT compared with using a conventional toll facility is beneficial for improving toll collection.