The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA), the worldwide association representing toll facility owners and operators and businesses that serve them, is in San Diego through July 22. The 8th Annual Summit on All-Electronic Tolling, Managed Lanes & Interoperability is being held at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel. This year’s IBTTA Summit is hosted by two IBTTA members SANDAG – the regional decision-making forum for the 18 cities and county government in the San Diego region – and the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) – Orange County’s 67-mile toll road system.

“Across the United States and around the world, the tolling industry is deploying powerful technologies and systems that are enhancing road infrastructure funding and the mobility of road users every day.” said Patrick D. Jones, Executive Director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA).  “In the last decade, the tolling industry’s embrace of new technologies has revolutionized the driving experience. From all-electronic tolling to managed lanes, toll operators are providing safer, more reliable transportation in 35 states, including California.” 

Some of the topics being discussed at this year’s Summit include:

• The rapid embrace of all-electronic tolling: A generation ago, tolling meant stopping and waiting to pay a toll at a collection booth. With today’s all-electronic systems, vehicles pass through a tolling gantry at highway speeds.
• The growth of managed lanes, like the 20-mile segment along Interstate 15 (I-15) in San Diego, that eases rush hour congestion and delivers a safer, more predictable ride.
• Connected and autonomous vehicle technologies that hold the promise of dramatically improving safety and roadway capacity.

“Today, most tolling agencies are also technology agencies,” notes IBTTA President Mike Heiligenstein, Executive Director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) in Austin, Texas. “We’re in a world where people expect things to be seamless, and the new tolling technology makes that seamless factor possible, within and across agencies.”

You can read a blog post about the summit on IBTTA’s Tolling Points blog, here.  Also, you can subscribe to IBTTA’s Tolling Points blog to receive the latest updates and information relating to the tolling industry and news across the transportation community by going, here.  

The summit takes place in the midst of this year’s critical debate in Congress on how to save the nearly insolvent federal Highway Trust Fund.  IBTTA and its members have been vocal advocates to allow states the maximum flexibility needed to fund their transportation needs, including tolling. Tolling is a viable, proven and increasingly popular tool for states to fund major infrastructure projects.