Florida has SunPass, South Carolina has Palmetto Pass, and in Spring of 2011, Georgia will roll out it's new electronic tolling system called Peach Pass.

The new Peach Pass will be valid not only on the I-85 High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties (Georgia DOT Project ID 0009295), but it will also be used on any future Georgia-built toll roads or HOT lanes and the existing tolled section of GA 400.

According to the Peach Pass FAQ page , all vehicles that use I-85 HOT lane will be required to have a Peach Pass (or a Georgia Cruise Card, provided they sign a new agreement), regardless of vehicle type or how many passengers said vehicle will have.

Customers will specify whether or not the vehicle will be "tolled" (solo driver and/or driver with 1 or 2 passengers), or "toll exempt" (including personally-owned vehicles carrying 3 or more passengers, motorcycles, emergency vehicles, transit vehicles, and Alternative Fuel Vehicles).

Those who travel the new HOT lanes without either Peach Pass or valid Cruise Card will face a fine (amount to be determined, but I believe it will be at least US$50) plus the toll amount.

So far, the "tolled" and "toll exempt" options sort of answer my questions regarding tracking who pays versus who does not pay the toll. However, I could see someone fraudulently obtaining a "toll exempt" Peach Pass for their personally-owned vehicle and using it to travel as, say, a solo driver. As far as I can tell, the system simply will detect whether or not you are traveling in the HOT lane with a valid transponder. What mechanism will be in place to keep people from exploiting this potential "loophole" in the system?

As for how effective these new HOT lanes will be in decreasing traffic congestion, even the "experts" do not know (according to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Given that Peach Pass will also be valid on the existing GA 400 tollway, it makes me wonder if the Georgia DOT will not remove the tolls next year. Are GDOT and the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) so hungry for our hard-earned money that they want us to keep paying for GA 400 long after the bonds for said road's construction have been paid? That would be like having to continue to make mortgage payments on your house long after the debt to the lender has been paid... and frankly, dear reader, that totally sucks!!!

Now that I'm down from my "soapbox", here is a montage of the proposed HOT lane overhead signage as designed by Jacobs Engineering (images taken from PDF documents on the Georgia DOT Transportation Explorer (TREX) website)...



And finally, here's my latest road video where I'm cruisin' down GA 400...



That's it for now. Thanks for reading and watching and please visit often.

 

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