A Letter to Our Customers from NTTA Executive Director Allen Clemson

Dear Valued Customer

We understand you have a choice when you travel around the metroplex, and we thank you for your patronage. There have been recent stories in the news about NTTA’s collection efforts.  I want to assure you that NTTA staff is committed to making sure everyone pays when they use the toll roads. 

The recent stories have blamed the conversion of the NTTA System to all-electronic toll collection or cashless tolling for the increase in the number of drivers who don’t pay.

Cashless tolling does rely more on cameras to collect tolls, but there are hundreds of millions of dollars in operational savings over time. When you combine the savings with improvements to safety, mobility and air quality – it is easy to conclude the transition has been beneficial to North Texas drivers.

Over 92% of drivers pay their tolls on time and the percentage of those who do not is small.  We are doing everything feasible to reduce the number of non-toll payers.  The NTTA continues to pursue cost-effective and efficient methods to collect tolls to make sure that everyone who travels NTTA toll roads pays for the service.

Below is a breakdown of first quarter 2010 transactions that were provided to the Dallas Morning News:

81.42% TollTag transactions
 3.36%  Cash at toll booths
 4.03%  ZipCash Paid Invoices (50% higher priced tolls that are billed later)
 2.94%  Zip Cash Invoiced and being actively pursued
 3.05%  Zip Cash Pending/will be invoiced when a driver reaches five transactions*
 5.20%  Not Pursuable**                                                                                                 
100.00%  Total Transactions

* The NTTA waits until the driver has accumulated at least five transactions before sending an invoice. This prevents the NTTA from spending more than it collects and the customer does not receive multiple small bills.

**5.20% are not pursuable for the following reasons:

1.11%  No Image – Camera does not take a picture.
1.94%  Bad Image - Technical issue – image too dark, too light etc.
  .53%  Bad Image – No NTTA Control Over – no license plate, folded up dealer plates, muddy license etc.
1.15%  Texas License Plate Issues – No match, mostly due to drivers not updating information with DMV
  .47%  Excused – deceased, driver not in possession of vehicle, toll system anomalies

The NTTA realizes the increasing importance of evaluating and improving our processes as our revenue becomes more and more dependent on image capture, image quality and DMV information. 

Although our image capture rate is at 98.7%, the NTTA has identified ways to increase the amount of pursuable transactions:

As one of the first in the nation to convert to all-electronic toll collection, we continue to evaluate and improve our processes and collection methods for all drivers.  For instance,

• Improve image capture rates to 99.6% (currently 98.7%) through the replacement of the current video toll image capture system, new and additional cameras to capture front license plates. 
• Increase the number of pursuable transactions with new cameras and training of manual image reviewers. 
• Improve Texas DMV dealer temporary license plate matching by utilizing a new DMV program called e-Tags in which a temporary dealer license plate has a unique ID that ties to the registered owner.
• Add rental car companies to current information sharing solution. In 2008, the NTTA and Enterprise Rent-A-Car identified an information sharing solution that enabled the NTTA to bill Enterprise customers directly. 
• Develop solution for out-of-state license plates – comprising about 1.5 percent of all transactions through an automated solution that will allow the NTTA to pursue out-of-state drivers more cost effectively.

Paying with a TollTag is the least expensive method of travel on Texas toll roads.  TollTag customers receive preferred rates when they travel, the convenience of parking at D/FW International and Love Field Airports, and the ability to use their TollTags on any Texas toll road.  ZipCash customers pay 50 percent higher toll rates than TollTag customers and are subject to escalating fines if they do not pay their bills.

We will continue to keep you posted of improvements to our toll collection efforts.  We thank you for your continued patronage on the NTTA System. If you would like more information regarding the NTTA, please visit our website at www.ntta.org.

Sincerely,