Do Ny Toll Cameras Take Picture Of Back Plate
As Toll Dodgers Go Creative, Eyes of E-ZPass Are Watching
Cameras photographing cars from just about every imaginable angle. Loftier-speed radio frequency readers instantly scanning Eastward-ZPass tags. Ii dozen "image review clerks" hunched over computers in their cubicles examining thousands of photographs each twenty-four hours, waiting to pounce.
While some people want to make a killing at the tables in Atlantic City, others have more than a modest goal: saving every bit trivial as 35 cents by trying to beat the tolls at the area'due south myriad bridges, tunnels and highways. Simply the skimming adds upwards. The operators of Eastward-ZPass in New York estimate that about $13 1000000 is lost each year to artful, and in some cases artless, toll dodgers.
When it comes to tracking down these evaders, Joseph Crosby has seen all of the stunts to block the cameras that photo every vehicle with a missing or defective tag: cardboard license plates, plastic covers obscuring numbers, and once, a baby dangled from the back of a truck.
In some cases, tractor-trailer drivers remove the front end license plate, which is registered to the driver of the cab. The evaders hope that without a front plate, the cameras volition be able to photograph only the back license plate, which is registered to the possessor of the trailer, who volition not have the time to rail downwards the commuter.
"Nosotros're seeing that more," Mr. Crosby said, sitting in his cubicle at the East-ZPass service center on Staten Island surrounded by pictures of his dream cars — Porsches, Lamborghinis — pinned to the walls. "Of course, the cameras capture the front end and dorsum license plates."
The losses are hard to ignore when lawmakers beyond the country are trying to squeeze whatever money they can from their roads, bridges and tunnels, particularly in the dozen states that accept E-ZPass. Accept Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who desire to raise tolls to reduce congestion and to pay for huge transportation projects.
That is why Mr. Crosby and the other paradigm review clerks are on the front end lines of the never-ending battle to track down evaders who avoid paying tolls, wittingly or not. They each examine nigh ane,500 photos a day to identify the license plate numbers of the cars and trucks that go through East-ZPass toll booths without the electronic tags, or with ones that were broken or expired.
"If you allow the bad guys get away with information technology, the good guys won't pay," said John Riccardi, a liaison for the Port Potency of New York and New Jersey at the service centre.
The hunt shows no sign of slackening. The number of electronic tags issued by the Port Authority, the New York State Thruway Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authorization reached 9.8 million last year, up viii percent compared with 2006 and triple the number in 1999. More than than 71 percent of all drivers used Due east-ZPass at the Port Authority's tunnels and bridges last year, up from 45 percent in 1999.
And with all three agencies poised to heighten tolls this yr, the number of evaders is likely to rise forth with them.
Last year, Mr. Crosby and his colleagues reviewed viii.half dozen million photos of license plates, which the agencies declined to release copies of, citing privacy reasons. While that represented less than 2 pct of the 460 million Eastward-ZPass transactions the 3 agencies handled, it amounted to millions of dollars in potentially lost acquirement.
Over all, the agencies collected $one.six billion in E-ZPass transactions in 2007, the bulk of it from New York and New Jersey residents. The 3 agencies and ACS, the company based in Dallas that was hired to handle the processing of tolls, take an elaborate system in identify to track down delinquents, peculiarly those from outside the region. The key is the list of valid and invalid tag numbers sent every twenty-four hours to computer drives in every tollbooth.
As a vehicle drives through an East-ZPass lane, a loftier-speed radio frequency reader almost instantly identifies the tag mounted to a dashboard or windshield and matches information technology against the listing to run into if the holder has enough coin fix bated to pay the toll.
Almost 90 percent of customers link their accounts to credit cards, which are automatically billed. The remainder utilize cash or a check to pay their bills.
Of course, at that place are the more playful — or vengeful — customers who post in coins and even cookies, presumably as a bribe. One fourth dimension, $10,000 in cash arrived and was promptly handed over to the police force. Another time, a customer returned his $iv refund check with instructions that the money be used to fix the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Assuming that the driver'south account is not overdue, a gate will swing upward or a greenish light volition illuminate. If the account has lapsed or no tag has been identified, as many as five cameras volition snap pictures of the front and dorsum license plates.
Inside two or iii days, those pictures are forwarded to Mr. Crosby and his colleagues, who pull them up on computers. They enter the location of the picture, the fourth dimension and date the vehicle passed through, the license plate number and land, and the type of motorcar or truck.
Some states accept hundreds of different styles of license plates, complicating the procedure and sending Mr. Crosby scurrying to his well-worn copy of "The Official License Plate Book," which lists historical plates, vanity plates and a diverseness of others.
Later on the plate numbers are matched against an agile account, the customer is billed. Drivers who forget their E-ZPass tags and drive through a cost gate will find out that they have been billed when they receive their monthly statements.
"Y'all wouldn't even know if information technology happened," said Helen Barton, the senior director at ACS for the Northeast. She added that these drivers were not assessed whatever penalties.
Tracking down drivers without accounts is more time-consuming. Getting the names and addresses of delinquent drivers tin accept up to ii weeks if it involves calling states without computerized license plate databases.
Then there are the disputes. Sometimes the photographic camera malfunctions, and sometimes it tin can be covered with snowfall or grime. Or the plates have purposely been obscured.
"When in doubt, we pass up information technology," said Mr. Riccardi, of the Port Authority, referring to pictures in which the license plates are illegible.
ACS employs 180 telephone operators; they answered most five 1000000 phone calls concluding year, including thousands from drivers who insisted that they had been wrongly charged. Some other team handled more than 400,000 faxes, letters and east-mail messages.
Customers who have been confronted volition oft argue that they were mistakenly billed — until they are told that pictures of their license plates are on file. In other cases, the operators may ask callers if a son or girl might accept surreptitiously borrowed the car. A surprising number of customers and so back downwards, Mr. Riccardi said.
A client with a blueprint of violations may be treated differently from someone calling for the beginning fourth dimension virtually a toll payment, Mr. Riccardi said.
Travel patterns are as well crucial. Operators may have more sympathy for a driver who claimed he was mistakenly billed for a trip across the Tappan Zee Bridge, for instance, if his record showed that he used E-ZPass to cantankerous the Goethals Bridge every day.
"With any human task, there'southward always going to be mistakes," Ms. Barton said. "But it'due south a pretty low rate compared to the number of transactions nosotros handle."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/nyregion/11ezpass.html
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