Fast Lane slips in stealth fees

(Report 2-26-09-2)

Up to 1 million customers hit with faulty charges

by Hillary Chabot
DNN Reports!
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009

The Pike has pulled a fast one on potentially thousands of FastLane users, slipping truck-sized charges onto their bills after their cars were electronically mistaken for bigger rigs.

The hefty fees - in some cases more than double what drivers were meant to pay - have been applied to as many as 1 million FastLane transactions at a time when tollpayers are already digging deep, according to a Turnpike audit.

“The reality is the technology that reads the number of axles is at least 10 years old. We recognize we need to replace a lot of our infrastructure including this technology,” said Jennifer Flagg, the Pike’s chief administrative officer.

The revelation comes a day after board members approved a $2 hike in tolls in the tunnels and a 25-cent hike at the Allston and Weston tollbooths.

Flagg said FastLane cameras are 99 percent accurate, but during bad weather the camera meant to read the number of axles on a vehicle can be covered with grime or snow and misread its target.

The potential misread has occurred on 1 percent of FastLane transactions annually, Flagg said.

Turnpike policy is to automatically charge the driver a fee for the higher number of axles.

For example, a motorist traveling from West Stockbridge to Boston’s South Station on the Pike would be charged $4.60 while driving an ordinary two-axle car with a FastLane transponder, but would be charged $10 if traveling in a truck or other vehicle with three to five axles.

“I firmly believe this is not a case of finders keepers, losers weepers. Financial crisis or not, we should return this money to the tollpayer,” said Turnpike board member Mary Connaughton.

Making matters worse, customers no longer get a statement in the mail, so many don’t even know they’re being overcharged unless they review their acccount online. Motorists have 60 days to dispute a charge.

Pike board member Judy Pagliuca said, “If you sign up for it, you should be checking your bill, but we want to make sure whatever policy we have in place is fair to the tollpayer.”

Roughly 720,000 people have FastLane transponders.

An investigation was sparked last spring by an eagle-eyed Framingham resident who noticed the extra charge and pointed it out to Connaughton.

“They were just going to refund him the 25 cents, but I thought if it happened once it’ll probably happen again,” Connaughton said. “This needed a systemic change.”