Express Lanes USA

Transurban extending express lanes toll forgiveness plan
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By Robert Thomson June 7 at 11:09 AM

Those things that look like pizza boxes record toll information as drivers pass under the gantries on the 95 and 495 Express Lanes. (Robert Thomson/The Washington Post)
Transurban, the company that operates the 95 Express Lanes and the 495 Express Lanes in Northern Virginia, plans to make its “First Time Forgiveness” program retroactive for drivers who mistakenly failed to pay a toll.
The current program, launched in October, had helped more than 2,700 express lanes users by the end of April, Transurban spokesman Michael McGurk said. “Making First Time Forgiveness retroactive was the logical next step,” Nic Barr, Transurban’s vice president of operations, said in a statement.
Express Lanes rules sign Rules of the road appear on these signs. (Transurban image)
Several hundred more customers have the potential to benefit from that, McGurk said.
This is how First Time Forgiveness has worked since October for E-ZPass customers who contact the express lanes operation to report they inadvertently missed a toll for the first time:
There’s no fee. If you make a mistake, such as not having enough money in your E-ZPass account, or you mounted the transponder incorrectly or didn’t link the license plate of the car you’re driving to the E-ZPass account, Transurban will allow you to pay only the toll and not the additional fee. (You have to provide evidence that you’ve taken care of whatever the original problem was that prevented the electronic collection of the toll.)
There’s no additional penalty for an incorrect address. Sometimes, Transurban sends a toll and fee invoice to an E-ZPass customer who used the lanes, but failed to have the toll collected. Sometimes the address on the E-ZPass account is incorrect and the letter is returned. That gets sent to a debt collection service for resolution. Under First Time Forgiveness, if the customer located via the debt collection service then contacts debt collection, Transurban will waive the additional fee when the customer provides evidence that the account issue has been resolved and the original toll paid.
Under the new retroactive part of the program, Transurban will send letters over the next week to all customers that its records show are eligible to be covered. If you have an immediate question, either call 855-495-9777 or go to expresslanes.com for more information.
Why?
All-electronic tolling is still a relatively new concept in the D.C. region. The 495 Express Lanes opened in November 2012 and the 95 Express Lanes in December 2014.
The gantries along the lanes that contain the electronic toll-collecting equipment give no feedback — no “Toll Paid” sign or green light — to inform the driver that the collection was successful. (Some safety experts say that providing such individual feedback at highway speeds would be a dangerous distraction for drivers.)
Transurban is a business, with a lease to operate the lanes and collect the tolls for most of this century. The business depends on controlling the number of cheaters seeking to avoid paying their tolls. But almost all electronic transactions are successful. Transurban says about 96 percent of trips are done by vehicles that paid at the time of travel or have an exemption to use the lanes. Fewer than 0.1 percent of trips go through debt collection and wind up in court.