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Pass error confounds toll booth scanners
By KATHY SAUNDERS TREASURE ISLAND -- To the computerized eye of the toll booth scanner, this year's Causeway bridge passes look just like last year's passes. So when the clock struck midnight on 2002 and for several days thereafter, none of the 10,000 new passes worked. The computer expected a new bar code, but the city's longtime printer mistakenly hadn't changed the bar code, only the colors (yellow to blue), and the scanner doesn't read colors. City Manager Chuck Coward said the scanner now accepts both passes, but part-time toll takers are working extra hours to sit by the scanner and watch for yellow decals. When they see one, they push a button that interrupts the equipment and gives the driver a red light. Coward expects Serigraphics Arts of Tampa, which has printed the Causeway passes for 20 years, to pay for the city employees' time. "That has not been resolved yet," said Serigraphics president David Johnson, who expects to work out something with Coward when they meet this week. "I'm reasonably sure that the error was on our part, but I don't know the full ramifications of it." Toll booth workers first noticed the problem a few minutes after midnight on New Year's Eve. "At first we thought it was a software problem," said Hal Bruce, the assistant public works director in charge of transportation. "We never thought in our wildest minds that they (the printers) would have screwed up like that." "At that point you have to correct the problem or deal with it," Coward said. The question of whether to reprint 20,000 passes and recall the 10,000 that have already been sold was easy for Coward to answer. "I made the decision that was functionally not practical," he said. Many people who went to City Hall to buy their passes would not appreciate the inconvenience of making another trip. Coward hinted at the problem during a Jan. 2 meeting with commissioners a few hours after he learned about the printing error. He sent them a memo Jan. 4 with his solution. It was inexpensive, he said, to install equipment that allows workers to manually override the scanners. Officially, the yellow 2001 passes are invalid, though the scanner will accept its bar code. Drivers without a 2002 pass must pay 50 cents each way. To help the city enforce its new manual system, Treasure Island police officers are increasing their patrols of the drawbridge. Drivers who fail to pay the toll face fines of $120. Coward acknowledged that city workers and the police won't be posted at the bridge at all hours. But he won't say when they will be on duty or for how long. "We're not planning to do it for 24 hours and we're not planning to do it all year," he said. "There is a point of diminishing returns and we know that. "We will do this as long as necessary and we will do this periodically in the future," he said. Coward said that the printers have acknowledged that the mistake was theirs. He said the city and the consultants who help operate the bar code equipment checked and rechecked the 20 sample passes sent in advance by the printer. "They check them for size, they check the bar code and they even test them on the computer to see if they work," Coward said. When the city approves the proofs, the printer makes 20,000 copies. "Someplace at the printer, between the proofs and the 20,000 copies, there was a mix-up," Coward said. The city paid Serigraphics about $6,300 for the job. Earlier this month, commission-appointed volunteers who produce the cable telecasts of commission meetings resigned because they did not receive free Causeway passes as a perk for their efforts. They complained they worked hundreds of hours last year while other volunteers who got free passes, such as those on the city's Code Enforcement Board, did not meet once in 2001. City commissioners explained that the cablecasting group is not an official city board and, according to policy, the passes go to current and retired city employees, volunteer firefighters, and as a thank you to members of some city boards. Coward said he plans to discuss the issue this week with commissioners and make some recommendations about possible solutions at the commission's regularly scheduled workshop, 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 120 108th Ave.
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