FRAUDscoop

The article below makes the new mini sunpass transponders sound so great, just wait till the sunpass citations start knocking at your door, we’ll see how great you think they are.  With the millions of citations being given presently, many due to transponder issues, the smarties make a transponder that doesn’t even have a light or tone to let you know it’s working.

Sticker tags popular in Florida - 12k/week | Toll Roads News

July 1 they started selling sticker tags in Florida and collecting tolls with the tiny paper thin wonders - the IBM-developed eGo product supplied by TransCore and being marketed by Florida tollers as SunPass Mini. As of last Thursday we’re told 15,500 have been sold, which by our calculation works out to 12,000/week. That matches almost exactly Florida Turnpike Enterprise’ target of selling 600k in the first year (though any extrapolation from ten days data is a stretch.)

“They are going gangbusters,” said Christa Deason a Turnpike spokesman.

New multi-protocol readers - Encompass-6s - were needed for reading the sticker tags alongside the Turnpike’s existing stock of about 3.3m hardcased transponders. Deason says that about 700 lanes are now equipped with the new readers and close to 1,000 will eventually get them.

A number of toll lanes are not yet equipped with the dual mode readers. In those lanes motorists with the sticker tags are being image tolled (or I-tolled as they say in Florida).

Deason says this isn’t creating any problems - an interesting commentary on the E-ZPass RFP which requires all lanes on all facilities be dual-mode reader equipped before any authority may begin transactions with the new transponder.

Turnpike focus group and other marketing show a continued demand for the hardcased transponders because of:

- their portability between vehicles

- the customer feedback by means of a green light and a tone (single indication for ‘toll paid’ and multiple for failure to pay)

But they expect the Mini sticker tag to be the big seller because it’s so cheap and doesn’t need a battery. Buying a Mini costs $4.99 but immediately a SunPass electronic toll account with a $10 balance is established to have the transponder activated the customer gets $4.99 of toll credits added to the account, making it in effect free.

The credits are non-refundable.

This complex financial dance is intended to push the sticker tags out to customers but to avoid people getting the stickers, then not using them (they cost the toller $8.50 each).

Another effort to push electronic tolling was the reduction July 1 of the minimum account balance to $10 of prepaid tolls. That applies to both Mini sticker tags and hardcased transponders.

Electronic tolls in Florida get an approximate 25% discount over cash - an incentive in effect since the last major toll increases in 2004. SunPass now does “close to 70% of total transactions,” they say.

Florida is the first toll system to operate sticker tags and hardcased transponder systems side by side on a permanent basis. Elsewhere sticker tags have been used - in Georgia, Houston - the dual mode operations have been conceived as a way of transitioning to sticker tags. In Puerto Rico and Washington state sticker tags were the first electronic toll system.