Retail Sales of FasTrak® Toll Tags on the Rise
By Karin Betts
Published: May, 2007
The news is spreading and Bay Area drivers are catching on — not only will a FasTrak® toll tag help you battle toll plaza traffic on the region’s bridges better than the speediest sports car, but you can conveniently pick one up at the grocery store! With the help of a strong retail distribution program, more Bay Area drivers are signing up to pay their bridge tolls electronically using FasTrak, and the percentage of drivers using FasTrak on many Bay Area bridges during weekday commutes has surged to just over 50 percent.
The in-car unit became available at 15 Costco warehouses and 55 Safeway stores in the Bay Area starting in January. Since then, almost 40,000 new toll tags have been sold through the retail program. (The toll tags themselves don’t actually cost anything; the sticker price you pay for the unit turns into your prepaid toll balance once the unit has been registered.)
The toll tags reportedly were the number one selling item at Costco in the first week of the campaign, thanks in part to two promotions: a cash-back program for people who pick up their toll tags at their Safeway or Costco store, and a temporary one-month reprieve for FasTrak users from the $1 toll hike that started January 1, 2007 on the state-owned toll bridges (and that increased auto tolls from $3 to $4). Even now, retail customers opening new FasTrak accounts are eligible for up to $10.50 in free tolls, credited at the time of registration. In the month of January alone, over 26,000 new FasTrak accounts were opened, causing the biggest one-month gain in accounts since the previous bridge toll increase during the summer of 2004.
The method by which customers are enrolling in FasTrak has changed dramatically since the launch of the retail program. In the months prior to retail, about 75 percent of new accounts were opened online, with the remaining 25 percent by other methods (phone, mail/fax, in-person). After the retail launch, the percentage of new accounts opened online has dropped to about 30 percent, while the percentage opened by phone, mail/fax and in-person has declined to about 10 percent. The remaining 60 percent of sign-ups now result from retail distribution.
The retail distribution initiative is part of the FasTrak Strategic Plan that the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) adopted in June 2006 to expand and improve electronic toll collection in the Bay Area (BATA is an offshoot of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission). The plan’s goals are to make the toll plazas at the region’s toll bridges function more efficiently, and to boost the percentage of motorists who use FasTrak. Currently, there are more than 638,000 FasTrak account holders in the Bay Area, up from 575,000 in December 2006, just before the retail program.
On average, FasTrak-equipped vehicles currently account for 47 percent of the peak-period traffic crossing the region’s seven state-owned bridges, with FasTrak usage rates on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Benicia-Martinez Bridge and Richmond-San Rafael Bridge rising to over 50 percent. These figures compare to an average peak-period usage rate for FasTrak of 41 percent a year ago for state bridges, but are still below the 70 percent FasTrak usage rate for morning commute drivers on the Golden Gate Bridge (a trend spurred by a toll discount for FasTrak users, who pay $4 to cross the Golden Gate instead of $5).
FasTrak can be used in all lanes at all Bay Area toll plazas. During August of 2007, BATA will convert more cash lanes to FasTrak-only lanes. This will be accompanied by lane striping and signage improvements to separate FasTrak traffic and cash toll payers as far in advance of the toll plazas as possible. In addition, the Strategic Plan calls for FasTrak-only lanes to be grouped together at the left side of the toll plazas to the extent feasible, with cash lanes to the right side of the toll plazas and approaches.
To sign up for FasTrak, or for a complete list of retail locations, visit www.bayareafastrak.org.
