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A new year, a new toll system

Santa came a little early to Boca Grande in 2009, bringing brightly-lit, stainless steel digital readouts in the form of a new toll system. While it may not guess your weight, it will tell you exactly how much money is left in your account each time. As an added bonus, for those good at fast division, it will tell you how many trips are left as well.

“Santa landed his sleigh on the toll plaza at midnight Saturday night and plugged in our new system,” said Jim Cooper, executive director of the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority. “It’s been up and running since December 20, and what that means for our customers, as far as bar code account folks go, is that the service will be better.”

Cooper said the $537,000 system will scan more accurately and quickly, and in the manned toll booth lanes the toll-takers’ new wireless scan guns will be portable and have a better “read” capability.

“The new guns have a stronger laser with a target so they can aim it better,” he said. “It’s a quicker read.”

Another feature that Cooper predicts people will like is the patron fare display. Located right next to the toll-taker, the new displays are much brighter and larger than the old ones.

“They give you an account balance, and depending on how much is in your account, will subtract that trip and give you the current reading,” Cooper said.

In the self-scan a slightly different procedure is taking place. Cooper said the toll card only needs to be placed under the reader, not slid underneath it.

“I know it might take some people some getting used to, with the slot scanner the driver had to slide the card through, sometimes two or three times,” Cooper said. “It was sometimes problematic, but this thing is better. You present the card to the machine like it’s taking a picture, about two inches lower than the machine. You can’t put it right up to it, but when you do it right it will make a sound, and the light will go from red, to flashing red, to green. Then the gate will go up.”

The solid red light signifies the system has found a car at the booth, the flashing red light means the card is being read, and the green light means “go.”

In May of this year the contract to create the new system was given to E-Transit of Bridgeport, Pa. They started working on installing the system in October.

Cooper said they hope to do away with the old “red card” system used for commercial vehicles in the near future.

“With the new system, all commercial tolls are noted by the computer and it will automatically take money out of the account, but we’re still contacting red card people to see how they want to handle it,” he said. “In other words, one account is all that’s needed for all transactions by all drivers. The computer knows the difference between commercial and other vehicles, and basically it will count the axles and figure what the toll is. When you go through the booth, the difference is that the tolltaker will be pre-registering vehicles, but if he doesn’t see a third axle, like a vehicle pulling a trailer the attendant didn’t notice, it’ll go through and flag a violation, then bill the account. It’s a very accurate system.”

The new radio refrequency identification system has not yet had all the bugs worked out, but Cooper said they’re working on it.

“We’re still in the process of testing it, because we have to make sure we have positive identification with 100 percent accuracy with all vehicles,” he said. “I think our biggest clientele for those will be folks who have stickers or annual passes. With an RFID sticker, those clients won’t have to go through the manual lanes and be scanned with a scan gun. They can go through the self-scan lane.”

The cost to upgrade to the RFID sticker, when they become available, will be $10 each. They can be used in the same way the bar code stickers are, which is on the window of the car, or they can be put on a “hang tag” and hung from the rearview mirror.

Cooper also said that causeway drivers will also find another change in the system. When the alarm on the swing bridge sounds, indicating that the bridge is about to open, vehicles traveling onto the island will be stopped at the toll booth until the gate is completely down.

This change in procedure stemmed from a recent incident when a gate came down on top of a truck hauling a boat.

“If we have a bridge opening, we will be holding people in the lanes to the island,” Cooper said. “It will only be for a minute or so,  just to make sure the gate is completely down. It’s a safety thing.”