A committee of the Bay Area Toll Authority on Wednesday voted to move forward with a plan to nix all human toll takers from the region's seven state-owned bridges and replace them with an all-automated system.
In a nutshell, said Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman John Goodwin, it would mean replacing people with FasTrak.
The system is already being used on the Golden Gate Bridge.
The authority decided to award a $450,000 contract to Jacbobs Engineering of Pasadena to look at how all-electronic tolling could be done at the bridges and what effect it would have on traffic, revenue and operating costs.
The consultant would also decide whether it would make sense to eliminate toll collectors, and possibly toll booths, at the Caltrans bridges: the Bay, San Mateo, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, Carquinez, Benicia-Martinez and Antioch spans. The Golden Gate Bridge falls under the jurisdiction of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
The consultant must produce its findings by February 2016.
MTC legislation and public affairs spokesman Randy Rentschler said no toll takers, who work for Caltrans, would be laid off. Caltrans typically reassigns agency workers, and Rentschler said some might leave voluntarily because they only enjoyed working as a toll taker. However, the BATA Oversight Committee memorandum written by MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger states the move "could result in a reduction in Caltrans toll collection staff."
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Fiscal year 2013-14 generated nearly $694 million in tolls collected from about 130 million vehicles on the state-owned bridges. A total of 57 percent paid the full-fare toll electronically using FasTrak, and 38 percent paid using cash, according to the toll authority.
The Golden Gate Bridge became the first Bay Area bridge to stop using humans to take tolls, moving to a fully automated toll-collection system in March 2013.
But there have been issues with the FasTrak customer service center. Bay Area Toll Authority documents show that Xerox, the company collecting the tolls, has been slow to mail out bills and answer calls. In a March 4 program update, the toll authority called the performance "extremely poor" and fined Xerox $330,000 in penalties, and is poised to levy an additional $230,000 in fines.
NBC Bay Area's Bob Redell contributed to this report.
