All-Electronic Toll Collection systems and Hybrid Toll Plazas that support open road tolling experience 73 to 45 percent fewer crashes than Traditional Toll Plazas, respectively.

University researchers examine the safety impacts of different tolling system designs in Florida.

Date Posted
09/25/2019
Identifier
2019-B01400
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Crash risk analysis of different designs of toll plazas

Summary Information

This study examined relationships between crash frequency and toll plaza types in Florida. Common tolling system designs included in the analysis were described as follows:



Traditional Toll Plaza (TTP). This design requires vehicles to rapidly decelerate, navigate through different fare transaction options, and then accelerate and merge with traffic. These confusing maneuvers constitute safety challenges and form high risk locations on toll roads.



Hybrid Toll Plaza (HTP). This system retrofits existing tollbooths with express Open Road Tolling (ORT) lanes on the mainline and separate traditional toll collection to the side, or traditional toll collection on the mainline and separate ORT lanes to the side.



All-Electronic Toll Gantry or All-Electronic Toll Collection (AETC). This system is completely barrier-free. It replaces all tollbooths with regular express ETC lanes. The AETC system allows drivers to continue driving, without changing lanes, stopping or slowing down to pay the toll. The payment is collected automatically, instantly and accurately using a toll collection transponder known as a "prepaid transponder."



METHODOLOGY



Crash data from a seven year period were investigated, and a hundred mainline toll plazas (including 60 HTPs) were evaluated using multiple analytical techniques. A series of Safety Performance Functions using Negative Binomial models were fitted to establish the relationships between traffic and roadway characteristics, and crash frequency at the vicinity of HTPs.

FINDINGS

The data indicated that certain designs and locations at toll plazas were more likely to experience traffic crashes than regular segments of the expressways.

AETC and HTP designs were associated with fewer crashes than TTP by 72.6 and 44.7 percent, respectively. Therefore, AETCs and HTPs were found to be safer than the Traditional Toll Plazas.

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