I drove through a few tollbooths on the Mass Pike and the electronic toll system flashed a yellow “call FAST LANE” at me instead of the familiar green light. So I called up “April, ID #99883” and she explained the system to me:
- FAST LANE mailed me the transponder back in August 1999.
- The transponders are known to last for 7-10 years
- FAST LANE had my email address in their computer system also the date on which they provided it to me, but they do not send out an email notification after, say, 10 years, that the transponder is likely to fail soon.
- When the transponder fails, and the customer continues to drive through the FAST LANE lanes, they use their video imaging system to connect up the license plate with the account and debit appropriately, but they also tack on extra fees. Given that you go through three tolls just to get from Logan Airport out to 128/95 (the Boston belt highway), the fees can add up quickly.
- If you do drive through an attended booth with the transponder still in the car, you get charged twice, paying once in cash and once with the transponder (if it happens to work that time). So it isn’t practical to pay cash unless you can be certain it is one of the booths with no sensor.
In response to “how would I have known about the potential for extra fees in the event of a failure of the equipment that FAST LANE itself provided?”, April replied that “We told you about it in the terms and conditions that we mailed to you.”
When was that? “In August of 1999.”
How many pages were they? “Eight pages of single-spaced type. It is like a book that you can read. We can change the terms and conditions at any time. It says that right in the book.”
I asked if FAST LANE mailed out a new copy of the terms and conditions when they were changed, because in all the time that I’d been a customer I could not recall ever receiving an update. “No, but if you call we’ll be happy to mail you out a new copy at any time.”
It is tough to know if this posting can be considered a story about doing business with the government. April said that FAST LANE was a private corporation, but it is owned by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. A search with the Massachusetts Secretary of State did not bring up any seemingly likely private companies with the name “FAST LANE”.
is FAST LANE free for carpools? FastTrak in California is (at least on some roads). They tell you that if you’ve got multiple people in your car you’ll want to put the transponder in the bag it came in so it doesn’t trigger the sensor and you don’t get charged. I can’t figure out how they’d manage to charge you based on license plate in a system like this.
Dave: None of the toll roads, bridges, or tunnels in Massachusetts are free for carpools, as far as I know. If they were to become free, I guess they would have to put in a carpool lane with no human to collect money and no FAST LANE transponder reader.
I consider Illinois to be one of the most corrupt states in the nation, yet they work with Illinois citizens on this issue far better than your state. Our system is called IPASS. If the sensor fails for any reason, they do the same thing in using cameras and (I assume) an automated sustem to debit your account. If it happens enough times, they call you. There are no fines associated with this sort of failure. That has been part of the deal since the beginning and was a selling point of the system. Plus, automated tolls are 50% the price of the cash ones. Maybe Illinois is good for one thing after all. Thanks for brightening my day.
What are the transponders for? Is the video system unreliable or not installed everywhere? It seems to me that if they can automatically bill by license plate, they’re pointless.
Maik: The video system is not fully automated or reliable. I think all of this technology goes back to the 1980s and was deployed in the early 1990s (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-ZPass ). The London congestion fee system works with fully automated license plate readers, but that is about 10 years newer (went live in 2003).
In SoCal, the toll road operators are infamous for unbelievably egregious penalties for fines – and are equally incompetent in notifying or billing drivers when fines are incurred. Several times over the years, a local talk show (John and Ken on KFI AM640) spoke about the absolute outrages and interviewed affected people. Crazy, crazy stuff.
These weren’t criminals or devious offenders – their battery died or the transponder didn’t register or something equally mundane. “Maria and Pablo Gonzalez allegedly failed to pay $60.14 in tolls and were billed $78,780.” One family changed their checking account and the ‘auto-bill’ feature stopped working – they were never notified about the $580 in fines until the Orange County Transportation Agency (OCTA) came after them for $53,500 in penalties.
In the radio interviews, the people indicated that they were never notified of either the violations or the fines until massive penalty amounts were suddenly demanded.
Last year, a group settled a lawsuit against OCTA for excessive penalties and denial of due process:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/california-toll-road-penalties-were-unconstitutional/
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/02/local/me-tollroads2
Quasi-Governmental agencies like OCTA are very dangerous for our society as they are untouchable by normal democratic processes (elections) and yet are able to utilize government might (California Highway Patrol) as their enforcers.
I hope you escaped without a 130,000% (not a typo!) fine like OCTA tried to impose on some Californians!
the nice thing about the transponder is that you can borrow or rent a car, move your transponder to it, and not have to update license plates in the system or pay manually (where such facilities even exist; we have no manual payment in San Diego county)
i don’t believe i had to give up my plate number at all to establish an account.
Dave: That does sound like a nice system, but http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Highway/fastlane/faq.aspx#14 says that you can’t do it here in Massachusetts without registering each new license plate number.
California is so much more polite–they request rather than demand vehicle info.
E-ZPass is compatible with Fast Lane so you can choose from many different state providers and pick you fees and terms.
Even if Fast Lane were government owned, it’d be a weak argument to use this as evidence that the government is worse at handling customer operations than private companies. I have countless examples of insanity with private companies (cell phone companies and banks being the worst offenders), and even some examples of great government handling — the last time I got my driver’s license renewed in NY, it took less than 30 min.