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CARTA tolling overview: back office choice, pricing structures and early policy questions presented to STA
Summary
Staff from the Capital Area Regional Tolling Authority (CARTA) and SACOG presented an overview of tolling basics, back-office interoperability and early policy trade-offs for the Interstate 80 Yolo County project and a broader regional toll network; the presentation identified customer-account preferences and pricing options under consideration.
Sacramento Transportation Authority members received a high-level briefing on March 13 about tolling concepts and early policy decisions being developed by the Capital Area Regional Tolling Authority (CARTA) and SACOG.
Kathleen Hanley, who is supporting both SACOG and CARTA on tolling matters, told the board that CARTA is a joint powers authority between Caltrans, SACOG and Yolo County partners and that STA is a non-voting participant. She said the initial CARTA facility is an express/toll lane on Interstate 80 in Yolo County, now moving into construction, and that CARTA's role is primarily to operate and maintain toll facilities rather than to design or build them.
Hanley framed the case for tolling in two broad ways: as a mechanism that can help fund maintenance and operations for roadways and as a tool to manage congestion and improve reliability for both tolled and untolled lanes. She said toll authorities must weigh customer-service, pricing and interoperability: "there really aren't free roads," she told the board.
The presentation described two major system components: roadside detection (gantries, cameras and transponder readers) and a back-office system that processes transactions, ties them to accounts and handles billing, customer service and enforcement. Hanley and consultant staff discussed transponder form factors (sticker tags, hard-case tags) and noted that California uses a common FastTrak-compatible standard for interoperability among agencies.
Policy choices CARTA is addressing include whether to require a transponder/FastTrak account at point of use or allow license-plate invoicing; hours of operation for a toll lane (e.g., 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. versus 24/7); and pricing mechanisms (fixed toll, time-of-day variable rates, or dynamic real-time pricing). Hanley said CARTA's steering committee has favored using an existing Bay-Area-compatible back office rather than building a new system from scratch, a choice the board heard trades higher upfront interoperability and lower initial capital cost against other options.
Director Karina Talamantes, CARTA's STA representative, said the CARTA board has already debated technical details such as delineator types and back-office selection and that the board decided to require FastTrak membership for routine use, paired with an outreach program to enroll customers before launch.
Board members raised concerns about public perception, privacy and enforcement costs tied to license-plate invoicing. Hanley said tolling authorities typically recover most revenue from transponder-account customers, while license-plate invoicing produces higher administrative costs and lower revenue recovery due to address and collection issues.
The item was informational; no board action was required. CARTA staff said they will continue to refine business rules, operations hours and outreach plans before deployment of the I-80 facility.
