BEREA, Ohio — In a meeting with board members at Berea headquarters, Ferzan Ahmed, executive director for the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission, defended the agency’s new open road tolling system, saying it is performing well. But the numbers he presented were slightly worse than those given to 11 Investigates for an August report.
In early August, 11 Investigates was provided data from April 10 - when the system went live - through Aug. 10. Those numbers showed that 97.4% of all tolls were collected successfully. In Monday morning’s meeting, however, Ahmed reported that the number dropped to 97.2% of all tolls being collected successfully through the end of September.
“No electronic equipment functions correctly 100 percent of the time,” Ahmed said. “Recent media stories have insinuated that it is common for E-ZPasses to not be read under our new system. Those media stories are inaccurate.”
But he presented another piece of data that was not included in the August report – "V-toll trips." V-toll trips are trips in which an E-ZPass was not successfully detected, but cameras were able to link the license plate to an active E-ZPass account, which was then successfully billed. This happened 479,407 times during the six-month period or an additional 1.6% of the time. All together, 4.4% of trips had some type of issue - more than 1.2 million drivers – in the first six months of operation.
“When 97.2% of transactions are successful under a brand-new system, and when most of the remaining transactions are due to improper use of the system, one cannot state that the system is not working,” Ahmed said.
Turnpike officials have said many of the issues are because of drivers not properly mounting their transponders, having an expired credit card on the account, or from drivers ignoring multiple road signs that indicate when to pull into a plaza to pay a toll or collect a ticket.
Ahmed announced that the turnpike has begun a mass media campaign to educate drivers on how to use the system, which is intended to allow E-ZPass users to go from point to point without stopping. For example, at milepost 49 westbound, an E-ZPass user would stay to the left and would not need to stop at a booth at any of the next several exits. Drivers without an E-ZPass must pull into the new milepost 49 plaza to pay a toll before reentering the main lanes.
11 Investigates has reported on several drivers who said they were confused by the new toll plaza and missed paying the toll. On Aug. 15, the issue apparently took a deadly turn. A woman from Minnesota slowed sharply near the entrance to the plaza and then was hit from behind by a semi. Her husband and son were killed in the accident, which triggered two separate accidents that killed two other people. The woman later told troopers that she was confused by the new plaza and that it needed to be changed. Turnpike officials told us that the majority of issues with the new system have been with out-of-state drivers who were unfamiliar with the roadway.
A secondary issue from the new system is drivers receiving unexpected invoices after missing the toll or not having their E-ZPass transponders read correctly. The turnpike captures a license plate of a vehicle as it leaves the roadway, but is not able to determine where it enters, so a driver is charged for the entire length of the turnpike. A driver may believe they got lucky and didn’t have to pay a toll, but instead get a bill for more than $20 in the mail.
Angry drivers have flooded the turnpike’s phone lines, overwhelming the customer service center. It was reported at Monday’s meeting that the call center received 387,000 calls through September. At the same point in 2023, it had received 243,000 calls. In addition, there have been 48,000 emails received versus 33,000 by the end of September in 2023. In response, the turnpike has boosted its customer service center from 15 to 26 employees.
At the meeting, it was announced that an additional 10 staff members will be added in 2025.
At one point last week, we called and the wait time to talk to a representative was more than four hours. On a different day, it was 25 minutes. In response, the turnpike continues to waive late fees and is not turning over accounts to collection until the wait times become more manageable.
Final investigative reports related to the Aug. 15 accidents are expected from the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board in the coming months.