Do you realize that the operational goals of toll roads – reduced and reliable time in transit, safety and efficiency, emissions reduction, and fuel savings – align with those of trucking? Here’s why.

For toll road operators, achieving those goals equates to attracting and retaining customers and to bottom-line profit. For motor carriers operating on toll roads, achieving those goals means reliable time in transit, improved safety, lower operating costs, and reduced environmental impact.

All businesses, of course, seek ways to attract and retain customers. In this case, toll road authorities commissioned studies and other research to confirm alignment with their customers. And then they asked how to achieve those shared goals. The solution has led to a complete restructuring of traditional toll roads in recent years, moving from entrance and exit gates, staffed toll booths, and multiple payment lanes to open, free-flowing traffic lanes with all-electronic tolling or AET, sometimes also called Electronic Toll Collection, or ETC.

Toll roads have adopted two AET methods to identify and invoice toll road users:

1) License Plate Reader (LPR) systems that rely on gantry mounted cameras to photograph license plates, also called “toll-by-plate” or “plate reads.”

2) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponders and antennae.

A new PrePass whitepaper, “Driving Cost Savings with RFID and Electronic Tolling,” outlines the differences in the toll collection administration and efficiency of toll-by-plate and RFID transponders are stark. Toll-by-plate requires matching often unclear license plate photos to vehicle owners and then mailing invoices. RFID transponders allow immediate identification of responsible toll road users and on-the-spot payment through registered accounts. Also, RFID transponder toll rates are often less costly than toll-by-plate toll rates.

For the most part, though, the choice between toll-by-plate and RFID transponders is up to the toll road user – in this case, the trucking company. The inefficiencies of toll-by-plate mean added administrative costs to the toll roads and more uncollectable tolls. As one toll authority, which uses both video cameras (“toll-by-plate”) and RFID transponders, discloses on its website, “Video toll rates are 1.5 times the base toll rate… Video toll rates are the highest rates to offset the higher cost of processing video tolls.”

Read the new PrePass whitepaper, “Driving Cost Savings with RFID and Electronic Tolling,” and learn how an RFID transponder is the best choice for when it comes using toll roads equipped with automatic electronic tolling. Not only does an RFID transponder help you save time, fuel, and money, but it also gives you fleet reliable time in transit, improved safety, and reduced environmental impact.

The PrePass blog and podcasts are published as a public service of PrePass®, the most reliable and technologically advanced weigh station bypass and integrated electronic trucking toll payment platform in North America. PrePass also includes INFORM™ Safety and INFORM™ Tolling software for improving truck safety scores and lowering toll costs.