Searching for change at toll booths to end as Kansas Turnpike turns to cashless tolling
Fumbling with a paper tickets and searching for loose change to pay a toll will end next year as the Kansas Turnpike is turning cashless.
The Turnpike will make the change to cashless tolling in mid-2024, according to the Kansas Turnpike Authority’s website. That means toll plazas will soon be a thing of the past too.
Rather than having toll plazas at each entry and exit, sensors and cameras will be suspended above the highway by a framed structure similar to how signs are mounted overhead along highways, according to a KTA video.
There will be 21 of these overhead toll gantries placed between the current toll plazas along the 236-mile Turnpike. Each time drivers pass underneath, they will be charged a toll.
The last several years has been a lot of behind the scenes work, said Rachel Bell, director of business services and customer relations for the Kansas Turnpike Authority. But now, the gantries are going up.
“If you’ve traveled on the Turnpike, you’ve probably seen the overhead structures going up along the roadway and crews are going to be working here very shortly to install equipment on those gantries,” she said.
About 50% of the gantries have already been installed along the Turnpike. Crews are done with the stretch south of Emporia, so the majority of the work left is along Interstate 70 between Topeka and Kansas City.
The equipment, however, will not be live — that won’t take place until about a year from now. It takes time to get the equipment up and running properly, she said.
Tolls are collected via information the equipment captures from K-TAGs or compatible devices. For vehicles without a K-TAGs, bills will be mailed to the vehicle’s owner based on registration information associated with the vehicle’s license plate.
The equipment will operate the same way as the highway speed lanes at the KTA’s Southern Terminal, East Topeka Terminal and Eastern Terminal.
The change is expected to eliminate congestion when exiting the Turnpike because there will be no more waiting in line to pay a toll or getting stuck behind someone in the wrong lane.
Eventually, the cash collecting equipment and tool booths will be removed and the entry and exit ramps will be reconfigured for a more seamless and safe experience getting on and off the Turnpike, according to the video.
For drivers who already have a K-TAG or compatible service, there will be no change. Drivers who currently pay at a tollbooths are encouraged to get a free K-TAG by ordering it at myktag.com.
About 65-70% of the Turnpike’s traffic use a K-TAG or compatible device. Not only is it the most convenient way to pay the toll, it is also the cheapest, Bell said.
The Kansas Turnpike Authority announced the change to cashless tolling back in 2020. This spring, the Turnpike authority opened a new administration building in south Topeka as part of its move to cashless tolling. It includes a 40-seat call center and walk-in customer service.
The Turnpike started looking at cashless tolling about a decade ago, but decided that the time wasn’t quite right.
“We knew we had to be planning for it because this is direction that the direction that the industry is going,” Bell said. “We started taking another look at it seriously about five years ago and decided that this mid-2024 time frame was right.”
Bell said there are several reasons why the timing is right now:
- The Turnpike’s cash collection equipment was aging out and was either going to have to be replaced or a switch to a cashless system.
- When looking at its workforce, the Turnpike realized that about 70% of its cash collection workers would be of retirement age in the 2023 and 2024 window, so making a switch now would have the least impact on workers.
- Moving to a cashless system is also a safety improvement because it eliminates slow moving traffic next to highway traffic.
- About 50% of the Turnpike traffic is from out-of-state, which means that at least half of its customers have experience with other states’ roads. They have been asking for several years for the Turnpike to go in the cashless tolling direction.
The Turnpike Authority will release more information about the transition to cashless tolling as the switchover date nears.
This story was originally published July 14, 2023 at 11:05 AM.
