SunPass defect doubles some tolls

A beep-beep alerts drivers that their automatic toll devices are registering an overcharge. Turnpike officials say the software glitch has been fixed.

By DAN DeWITT

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 19, 2001

BROOKSVILLE -- Tom Ingle drives the Suncoast Parkway almost every day, commuting from his home in Spring Hill to the carpet store he owns in Brooksville.

To make the trip more convenient, he bought a SunPass, which automatically charges the tolls to his account with the Turnpike District of the state Department of Transportation.

But shortly after the district began charging drivers in May, he noticed something puzzling about his SunPass transponder, the pager-like box that registers the charge: It sometimes beeped twice as he passed through toll plazas.

The display on the transponder indicated he had been charged twice, which was confirmed by a detailed statement of his account and a conversation with a Turnpike District official.

"She told me I had 18 overcharges. That's a lot of them," said Ingle, 61. "I wonder how many other people are getting overcharged."

The district doesn't know that for sure, said Evelio Suarez, manager of SunPass Operations. It has, however, identified the source of the problem and believes it was fixed last week.

More than 450,000 people have bought the SunPass transponders since they became available in April 1999. But only in the past two months have drivers begun complaining about overcharges, Suarez said.

This makes him reasonably sure that the problem developed only recently. As far as he knows, he said, it is happening throughout the turnpike system, though only in lanes that accept both cash and SunPass.

Suarez said the laser system that counts the axles in these lanes was occasionally counting them twice.

This makes it more difficult to determine just how widespread the problem is, because erroneous charges look the same on computer records as legitimate ones for cars pulling trailers, he said.

After Ingle and a handful of other drivers began complaining in June, he said, the district studied the number of such additional charges at toll plazas throughout the state.

An unusually high number of extra charges "popped up on several of our reports," Suarez said.

At the toll plaza at Suncoast Parkway's exit ramp for State Road 50 in Hernando County, where Ingle was overcharged most frequently, the number of charges for extra axles in the staffed collection lane has been climbing steadily since it opened. About 3 percent of the drivers paid double in May, 7.8 percent in June, and, in July, that figure was up to 9.7 percent of 5,757, Suarez said.

"At that point, it starts to get our attention."

The district began working on the software in July and thought it had been fixed by Aug. 1. Later analysis, though, showed it was persisting. On Thursday, engineers told him they had finally corrected the glitch, Suarez said.

Ingle, though, advised drivers to listen for extra beeps that are not explained either by a trailer or by money being added to the drivers' accounts, which also causes the transponder to beep twice.

Drivers who think they have been overcharged should ask for detailed statements, Suarez said, and the district will reimburse anyone who has been charged incorrectly.

Ingle has received the amount he overpaid, he said. Most of the overcharges were only a quarter, though some were larger. While it was only a matter of a few dollars, it has left him with a sour feeling about the expressway that has otherwise benefited him.

The road has cut his commute nearly in half, to about 10 minutes. But he still resents that the turnpike officials were initially unresponsive to his complaints.

"I like the road," he said. "I just don't want to pay double for it."

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