Five Ways to Improve Time to Payment in the Tolling Industry

The tolling industry is a critical component of our transportation infrastructure, enabling fee collection from drivers using roadways, bridges and tunnels-which in turn provides congestion relief and a sustainable funding source for roadway maintenance and improvements. Like most industries, tolling had to adapt quickly to recent technology changes. As a result, most roadway operators have moved (or are in the process of moving to) an all-electronic tolling (AET) collection model.

The conversion from physical collection booths to AET (or license plate-based charging) has made it more expensive and difficult for operators to collect revenue. In fact, the tolling industry faces a significant revenue leakage problem, with estimates suggesting that U.S. toll authorities are unable to collect at least $2.24 billion annually due to various breakdowns in the collection process.

As anyone who's been stuck in traffic knows, time is money. That's why modernizing collection practices and payment systems to include convenient digital collection methods can help get drivers to pay on time. By reducing the amount of time it takes to identify, bill and collect payments, toll operators can achieve significant operational efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction.

Operators have a true opportunity to modernize the tolling industry, meeting consumers' global expectations for digital, automated, seamless billing processes from all their service providers-including toll road operators. Deloitte, a leading industry analytics firm, determined that "it's easier to attract customers by making payment as seamless and accurate as possible. In fact, Deloitte determined that offering more options for paying tolls can reduce reliance on toll-by-plate tracking and the related paper billing process.