Tollway glitch results in thousands of late violation notices
A mix-up in issuing violation notices to Indiana drivers has the Illinois tollway figuring out how to collect an estimated backlog of $7 million from 116,129 Hoosiers.
The glitch spans nearly two years from summer 2008 to spring 2010 and originated from problems related to duplicate Indiana license plates.
The duplicate license plates meant erroneous violations were going out to Indiana motorists. As a result, the Illinois tollway halted sending out fine notices in May 2008 to reprogram the electronic toll system.
Officials intended to restart the process in June 2008, but errors occurred and the mistake didn't surface until this April, officials said Monday.
"Somewhere in that time, someone should have caught this," said tollway board Director Bill Morris, who heads up the agency's customer service committee.
Although Indiana drivers represent a relatively small number of the 1.4 million daily customers using the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, "there's no excuse. Clearly the ball was dropped," Executive Director Kristi Lafleur said.
The snafu recalled similar problems in 2007 and 2008 when a backlog of late violations occurred as the tollway transitioned between the two companies operating its electronic tolling system resulting in hundreds of drivers facing hefty fines.
Committee members discussed whether to let the Indiana violations go or collect just one year of fines, which would yield $4.6 million. They decided to pursue two years' worth of violations totaling $7 million, pending agreement by the full board.
"Why would we have different standards for Illinois and for Indiana?" Morris asked, adding he thought ETC Corp., the company operating the agency's electronic tolling program, also "failed us."
Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles spokesman Dennis Rosebrough said the state has two parts to each plate - a number and a specific design. Duplicate numbers do occur, he said.
"These issues have arisen particularly in jurisdictions that were not used to looking at plate types," Rosebrough said. The state is no longer issuing duplicate numbers, he added.
In the case of the Illinois tollway, the system didn't catch the differences between Indiana's standard plate and a version with "In God We Trust."
Filters were installed to suspend violation notices back in May 2008. But when the order came to restart the notices, not all the filters were removed, Lafleur said, meaning most violations remained in limbo.
The tollway staff uncovered the mistake in April, the same month Lafleur started as executive director, but did not inform her until mid-June.
The agency has now identified a backlog of 1.9 million violations related to 116,129 registered vehicle owners. The total of missed tolls is $1.6 million. Notices are triggered after three missed tolls, and violators will face a $20 late fee plus be required to pay the lapsed toll. I-PASS owners are expected to be exempt from the fine.
The normal violation process for Indiana drivers restarted in mid-August.
It's expected the tollway will conduct an audit to see what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.