Louisiana drivers will get fewer free rides on DFW tollways

By Gordon Dickson

gdickson@star-telegram.com

PLANO -- One of the worst-kept secrets in Dallas-Fort Worth is that out-of-state drivers can essentially get away with using toll roads for free.

Typically, the North Texas Tollway Authority sends a collection firm after only the top 100 out-of-state violators, finding it not cost-effective to pursue lesser scofflaws.

But that may change for many motorists from one neighboring state -- Louisiana.

On Wednesday, the tollway authority board approved an agreement with Louisiana's transportation department to share license plate information.

The agreement, which involved no exchange of funds, means that it will be easier and less expensive for the Plano-based authority to track down owners of vehicles registered in Louisiana and send them bills.

Louisiana will also have access to Texas registration records.

"We get a lot of traffic from Oklahoma and Louisiana on the tollways," said authority Chairman Kenneth Barr of Fort Worth. "Increasingly we're going after out-of-state users to see that we get paid."

The tollway authority was at the forefront of electronic toll collection, which has made the system more efficient and lured new drivers. Frequent customers use TollTags to pay electronically.

But since the last tollbooths were closed in 2010, occasional or infrequent users have had no place to pay with coins. And states don't readily share vehicle registration information.

"The whole industry is trying to figure out how to address this interoperability" among the states, Barr said.

Pursuing scofflaws

Tollway officials are sensitive to complaints from North Texans who pay to use tollways daily and don't want out-of-staters to travel on the same pavement for free.

The officials say that for several years they've used the collection firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson to track down the most egregious toll violators from out of state. The collection agency typically has gone after the top 100 violators -- many from Oklahoma and a smaller number from Louisiana and other states.

Tollway authority spokeswoman Susan Slupecki downplayed the agreement's potential to increase the agency's revenue. She said the main difference is that the authority may now get registration information from Louisiana rather than paying Linebarger $1.25 for each account it looks up.

"We're still getting the same information, but we're just not going to be paying our third-party vendor for it," she said.

But she did say that the agency plans to upgrade its software this year, which will automate the gathering of out-of-state license plate numbers. That will allow the agency to go after more out-of-state vehicle owners.

Collecting tolls from out-of-state drivers -- or even in-state drivers whose plates are hard to read -- is a growing problem nationwide as more agencies switch to electronic collection.

Overall, the authority misses out on several million dollars per year in unpaid tolls -- although most of the scofflaws are Texans.

Tracking and billing

Most vehicles on North Texas toll roads are equipped with TollTags. The electronic transponders use radio signals to tap into a user's account, which is typically backed by a credit card, and pay tolls automatically. For cars without TollTags, an extensive camera system photographs the license plates, and the owners receive a bill.

For in-state drivers, that's an automated process. But for out-of-state drivers, a human has to sort through the license plate numbers and send them to the collection agency. Typically, the tollway authority waits until a vehicle has accumulated five toll charges before sending the registered owner a bill.

The agency is discussing a similar arrangement with Oklahoma, the source of nearly a fourth of all out-of-state plates on the North Texas tollway system, officials said.

The Texas Department of Transportation, which operates Austin-area toll roads, also uses a third-party vendor, Law Enforcement Systems, to obtain vehicle owner information, spokeswoman Karen Amacker said.

Out-of-state drivers account for about 1.4 percent of total transactions at the state Transportation Department and about 1.7 percent of all transactions on the North Texas Tollway Authority system, officials said.

Gordon Dickson, 817-390-7796

Twitter: @gdickson

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