# Feds mandate one toll pass for all 50 states



## CHamilton (Nov 10, 2015)

Feds mandate one toll pass for all 50 states



> Rep. Mica has expressed disappointment with the toll industry's progress.
> 
> "I was a little bit concerned," Mica said. "We are coming up on one year to the deadline and I heard it wasn't coming together."
> 
> ...


Now, how about a national transit pass, Rep. Mica? Make all transit fares payable via the EMV chip that all credit cards will have soon. Oh, and don't forget to provide funding for it.


----------



## Bob Dylan (Nov 10, 2015)

And don't eat any $25 Amburgers at our expense while riding on the Star to Orlando!


----------



## jis (Nov 10, 2015)

There is already a big push afoot to get the Florida SunPass and E-Pass, which are interoperable, to be made interoperable with EZ-Pass. I am looking forward to that since then I will be able to discontinue owning an EZ-Pass transponder in addition to a SunPass transponder. The EZ-Pass transponder is a perennial fixture in my hand baggage whenever I head north.

I do support the efforts of Rep mica on this one.

As for transit passes, when we cannot even get the four agencies in New York to quite work with each other, what is the hope of getting the whole country to work together? At least will tool transponders there are big islands of interoperability already existing that need tog et hooked up together.


----------



## rrdude (Nov 10, 2015)

Agree with Mica on this too, but only for Toll roads. Don't want to be "interoperable"? Has your road/bridge/tunnel ever received one dime of Federal support? Sorry, you either "play nice" or pay a fine.


----------



## jis (Nov 10, 2015)

Surely you mean toll roads as well as bridges and other facilities that are tolled. Also a lot of Parking Lots now allow payment of parking fees using toll transponders. I would not want a plethora of parking lot specific transponders pasted all over my windshield either. For my driving in the eastern US I can make do with precisely two transponders at present. Would be nice tog et it down to one.


----------



## CHamilton (Nov 10, 2015)

jis said:


> As for transit passes, when we cannot even get the four agencies in New York to quite work with each other, what is the hope of getting the whole country to work together?


That's why we need national standards. My idea is that transit agencies can do whatever they like in terms of fares, but they have to accept EMV chips. Yes, it would take a huge retrofit, but the benefits would be enormous in the long run.


----------



## jis (Nov 10, 2015)

I think accepting EMV chips or some form of NFC in general at the hardware level is less of an issue than getting the backend systems to actually do something meaningful with them. That is where the real devil of the details lies. But I agree with you, if they do not accept some common EMV/transponder technology, then the rest cannot even come into play.

The problem between EZ-Pass and for example SunPass/E-Pass is more of a backend issue than the inability to just read the transponders as I understand it.


----------



## jebr (Nov 10, 2015)

Some sort of NFC would be much, much better than EMV, at least from what I can tell. EMV requires dipping the card into a terminal, adding seconds onto boarding each customer. It would seem to be much better to use NFC, maybe with some sort of rewritable chip inside? It seems like many of the current systems have essentially "offline" processing for buses where the chip inside of the card holds the fare, and the reader essentially writes over that when deducting a fare. The sync doesn't happen until the buses go into the terminal, which may speed up boarding some (doesn't have to call up to the main server) and allows for boarding even if there's no signal or an issue with the central server. If there's a way a national transit system could build on that technology, I think that would be ideal.


----------



## acelafan (Nov 10, 2015)

I'm not a fan of Mica. But, I do support the 1-transponder effort. I have ez-pass and sunpass; looking forward to keeping just the ez-pass someday.


----------



## benjibear (Nov 12, 2015)

Once there is a national standard, we can start tolling more roads. Everyone has one and everyone needs to pay for the roads. I know a lot of people will complain about this. However, it can be very useful to determine what roads are being used, and makes people pay for what they use.


----------



## fairviewroad (Nov 13, 2015)

The late J.R.R. Toll-king predicted this...

"One Toll Pass to rule them all, One Toll Pass to find them,
One Toll Pass to charge them all, and on the highways bind them."


----------



## CHamilton (Nov 13, 2015)

fairviewroad said:


> The late J.R.R. Toll-king predicted this...
> 
> "One Toll Pass to rule them all, One Toll Pass to find them,
> 
> One Toll Pass to charge them all, and on the highways bind them."


----------



## Palmetto (Nov 13, 2015)

Ah yes, the author of Lord of the Railroad Rings......


----------



## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 17, 2015)

EZ-Pass

OK-Pass

K-Tag (KS)

Sun-Pass

And the Pre-Pass for weight stations.

5 tags or stickers on my windshield. I do look forward to the national standard.

Charter member of EZ-Pass. Back in the day it was for commuters driving to Albany NY. Had to exit at Amsterdam, and turn round to get a ticket for the rest of the trip home. (Or just take Rt5)


----------

