R.I.P. OTA Toll Booths

[peterjmag]

OTA is getting rid of it's toll booths and going to PlatePay and Pikpass for payment. I wonder what they will do with the toll booth talk groups?

 

[Turner101]

OTA is getting rid of it's toll booths and going to PlatePay and Pikpass for payment. I wonder what they will do with the toll booth talk groups?

This is like 6mo old in the OKC area. I hated to see the new nice toll booths on the new section of the JKP TPK that we paid for completly wasted. They still have cones up blocking access. Its suppose to turn into an extension of I-240 apparently at some point.

I also wonder who actually pays their plate fees sent to them....

 

[peterjmag]

I frequently travel on the Cimarron to Enid and Wichita. They already took the booths out at Hallett and just last Thursday they were taking the booths out at 177 south of Sooner Lake. Makes for a faster trip but I hate to see people lose their jobs.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Shutting down manned tool booths is something we've been seeing more and more across the country. For example, when portions of SH-45/SH-130 opened bypassing Austin, the manned booths were closed within the first year and to date, some of the booths have never been manned (they were already built when the decision was made to automate). The reasoning behind this, it wasn't financially viable to man the booths when some 70% of the vehicles using the road were either NTTA tagged, TxTag tagged, or EZ-Pass tagged which brought about a interoperability act between the toll authorities to accept one another's tags.

Long story short, with more and more vehicles having some kind of toll tag and interoperability agreements, even with other states (i.e. many of the toll roads in OK will bill my NTTA account instead of making me stop or read my plates), and the cost of labor skyrocketing due to inflation it's just not financially feasible to continue to staff toll booths. It's not just an Oklahoma thing...something that is being seen all over the country.

 

[KI5EDJ]

It needs to be bye bye OTA period. My bad, I meant that.
Opinion aside, though, it's probably a good thing. It won't reduce tolls but might slow the increase. Plus quite a few of those booths are literally in the middle of nowhere. If you have a crash at one of them or the operator has a medical emergency, we simply wouldn't be able to get to them in time.

 

[tsalmrsystemtech]

Yup our toll boths in the SoCal area went away about 10 years ago or so. Technology took over and the live toll both person went away and went to cameras and pay by license plate. At least they give you like two to three days to pay if you do not have an RFID sticker or monthly account. you just go online and pay within a certain amount of time

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Yup our toll boths in the SoCal area went away about 10 years ago or so. Technology took over and the live toll both person went away and went to cameras and pay by license plate. At least they give you like two to three days to pay if you do not have an RFID sticker or monthly account. you just go online and pay within a certain amount of time

We just get billed via mail in Texas.

Did they pull the booths or just abandon in place? The reason I ask, the engineer that spec'd a lot of those booths in SoCal went on to reuse that design on SH-45 in Austin.

 

[dward42586]

OTA is getting rid of it's toll booths and going to PlatePay and Pikpass for payment. I wonder what they will do with the toll booth talk groups?

I never heard anything on that talk group that was worth hearing. I doubt many folks will miss it.

 

[wbloss]

"Bring me ten oranges, two fries, and three tomatoes" - I'm going to miss hearing that! (code for currency denominations)

 

[dave3825]

I hated to see the new nice toll booths on the new section of the JKP TPK that we paid for completly wasted.

Government is good like that. Now since those booths are unmanned and no longer require a salary with healthcare, wonder what they will do to still receive their budget monies..

 

[KOK5CY]

Toll booth at the Claremore gate is still doing toll collection. I also believe the gate at Vinita and afton is still collection. I happen to hear them discussing the fruits lol ..