By Mark Compton
CEO, Pennsylvania Turnpike

As the Pennsylvania Turnpike envisions the future of the tolling industry and prepares to embrace one of its most significant changes with Open Road Tolling, collaboration continues to be critical to our success. One area we tackle with our colleagues is ‘leakage’ or uncollected tax.

From the beginning of discussions about cashless tolls, through numerous pilot programs and full rollout in 2020, highway officials have anticipated and planned for spills. Since 2016, we’ve taken a business-like approach and studied the financial impact of a cashless system, created processes to accurately track revenue, and committed to increasing transparency for our customers.

We remain committed to focusing our law enforcement efforts on supporting a fair and equitable road system. This is essential as the revenue funds ongoing road improvements, safety innovations and improved customer service.

To foster the necessary cooperation within the agency on this widespread concern, I established the 2020 Lost Revenue Task Force as the incoming chair of our industry group, the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. This forum, the first of its kind, collects national and global best practices for combating spills.

Fast forward a few years, and turnpike continues to engage with agency leaders and colleagues to share the diligent work of our revenue enforcement team, who work across the legal, legislative and financial sectors to minimize revenue losses.

This team routinely reviews its Revenue Assurance Plan, a publicly available quarterly summary of transactions from the previous 12 months, to share data and identify areas for improvement.

Like toll agencies across the country, PA Turnpike data shows that the biggest driver of uncollected tolls is human behavior. Using this information, we launch new initiatives aimed at correcting them.

Extensive payment options including Google and Apple Pay, AutoPay for Toll-By-Plate users, the Kubra cash payment network, QR codes on invoices and a smartphone app mean it’s easier than ever to pay your tolls.

Initiatives led by Revenue Enforcement include tracking the ignored, using third-party services that combine publicly available data to locate people who have moved, are unresponsive or are hard to find. Bills older than 60 days are sent to consumer collection agencies.

We have expanded civil court options by hiring local prosecutors to bring criminal charges against flagrant individual offenders and civil cases against companies.

This collaboration also extends to legislative interventions. In 2016, the state Legislature passed Act 165, which allows the suspension of motor vehicle registrations for Pennsylvania owners with unpaid taxes and fees that exceed a fixed dollar amount.

Six years later, Act 112 lowered the threshold for unpaid taxes and fees from $500 to $250 and extended the statute of limitations from three to five years. With this, we saw almost a 50% increase in active suspensions. Since 2018, we have issued over 103,000 qualifying suspension letters to PA registered owners.

Just this summer, new legislation was introduced to ban license plate flippers. Although the intentional obstruction of number plates represents a very small percentage of transactions on the highway, we are grateful for the support and additional leverage to minimize opportunities for toll evasion.

Finally, we are working with neighboring taxing agencies to develop reciprocity agreements that could provide legal authority to pursue mockery in the other states. These efforts, which have been ongoing for several years, are challenging due to various civil and criminal tax evasion laws and tax back-office procedures. But, we are making progress without legal agreements.

For example, we recently worked with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to pursue and file criminal charges against a trucking company with more than $1 million in unpaid taxes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

Due to collaborative initiatives, illegible issues decreased by 27%, non-billables decreased by 22%, transactions not collected due to undeliverable addresses decreased by 71% compared to 2020 rates; In addition, the highway’s runoff rate aligns with national data, with a consistent average of 6%.

Traveling our way is a choice, but paying taxes is not. We hold those who owe taxes accountable, and to date the commission has collected nearly $26 million in unpaid taxes and fees for delinquents through toll enforcement initiatives. When Open Road Tolling launches in January east of Reading and along the Northeast Extension, we anticipate additional opportunities to work across agencies and departments to ensure a fair and equitable toll road system.

ORT is the future of global toll collection and brings an additional level of security, mobility, access and reduced environmental impact. Speeding down the highway without stopping, drivers pass under bridges that span the roadway. Equipment at the gantry and on the roadway classify and identify the vehicle and electronically process the tolls.

Modernizing our system while working collaboratively to enforce revenue collection provides economic and environmental benefits, positioning the Pennsylvania Turnpike to support national mobility and commerce for the next 85 years.