ACST Investigates HOV Enforcement and Toll Cheating on I-66 Inside the Beltway

In December 2018 and January 2019, the Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation (ACST) initiated a series of  Freedom of Information Act (FOIA ) requests with First Sergeant Steven R. Mittendorff, Area Commander with the Virginia State Police, Arlington Field Office.  His contact information is: 

1426-A Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia 22204 | phone 703.521.5073 | iPhone 571.283.3414 | fax 703.845.6564

Email: steven.mittendorff@vsp.virginia.gov

In addition, because First Sgt Mittendorff did not have this information at hand, our inquiry regarding the amounts of monthly reimbursements that VDOT pays the Virginia State Police from I-66 toll revenue for VSP activities on I-66 ITB was answered by Ms. Monica Bhaita, VDOT Tolling Operations Manager, for the I-66 ITB Tolling Facility.

Pursuant to this (redacted and scanned) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between VDOT and VSP, during the first year (12 months) of tolling operations, VDOT reimbursed VSP approximately $550,000 from I-66 toll revenue for new VSP enforcement activities during the eight weekday tolling hours.  

Reportedly, this redacted MOU directs VSP to station at least four additional state troopers in patrol vehicles (one at each operating toll gantry) to manually inspect the passing vehicles for those with an E-ZPass Flex in the HOV mode and without any passengers (only a driver), except when pursuing traffic violations or responding to traffic incidents.  Troopers witnessing suspected HOV violations are supposed to pursue and stop the suspect vehicle, to determine whether an HOV violation is indeed happening.

Note that under Reporting Requirements on page 4 of this MOU, the VSP Area Commander (1st Sgt Middendorff) is supposed to issue daily, monthly, and quarterly HOV-enforcement reports--"with vehicle information and the time/date of violations"--to VDOT's "I-66 ITB Facility Manager", presumably Ms. Bhaita.  In our FOIA inquiries to 1st Sgt Mittendorf, we specifically requested time and location data for the HOV-violation citations as well as copies of every HOV-enforcement report that VSP had submitted to VDOT over the previous year.  However, 1st Sgt Mittendorff replied that the times and locations of the HOV-violation citations were never captured or included in his reports to VDOT, that it would require substantial staff time for VSP to review the original summonses in order to provide that missing information, and that ACST would need to reimburse VSP for that staff time.

Instead, ACST received this VSP-database-generated incident summary report for the first 53 weeks of I-66 tolling (December 4, 2017 through December 7, 2018; a screenshot of the most relevant portion of this report is shown immediately below): 

VSP Incidents Summary for the First 53 Weeks of I-66 Tolling.  
Click on the image to see more data columns.

The relevant data are shown above for Incident Type # 17 (HOV Violations).  The number of HOV violations (1326) in the upper leftmost data column is the total number of HOV stops completed, whereas the number of HOV violations (702) in the lower leftmost "TOT-S/A" column is the total number of HOV summonses (citations) issued (to 700 passenger vehicles plus 2 "other" vehicle types).   According to this report, for 546 (41%) of the 1326 traffic stops for suspected HOV violations no HOV violation had in fact occurred, whereas for 106 (8%) of those 1326 traffic stops only a warning was issued.

Dividing the 702 HOV citations in this report by the 253 8-hour tolling days in this 53-week reporting period, yields an average of 2.77 HOV citations for every 8 hours of tolling.  (If one subtracts the 32 HOV citations issued during VSP's November 30, 2018 special enforcement campaign from the 702 total, the VSP issued only 670 HOV citations on the 252 remaining days, yielding a more representative average of 2.66 HOV citations/tolling day).

When ACST asked 1st Sgt Mittendorff for the HOV-citation data for specific individual days, he replied that the shortest reporting period possible with his database is one week.  Therefore, ACST requested similar weekly reports for the second quarter of 2018 (April-June), when the weather and daylight conditions should be optimal for police enforcement.  The total numbers of HOV citations issued during those 13 weeks were as follows: 19, 19, 18, 6, 21, 21, 4, 8, 5, 13, 25, 9, and 18, for a total of 186 citations.  This equates to an average of 14.3 citations/week, 2.95 citations/tolling day (186/63 tolling days), and 0.37 citations/hour of tolling (with four state troopers working simultaneously).  Furthermore, for 5 of those 13 weeks, the numbers of HOV citations for the entire 40-hour tolling week were in the single digits.

As stated in this January 5, 2019 statement linked here, a 99% HOV-compliance rate among the I-66 ITB facility's 14,000 vehicle trips/day taken with an E-ZPass Flex set in the HOV mode would equate to 140 toll-cheating trips/day, whereas the VSP has cited fewer than 3 vehicles/day, on average, for HOV violations.

Moreover, the following paragraph in this January 4, 2019 WTOP report suggests that approximately 400 solo motorists, who have typically been cheating the tolls on Fridays, either paid the toll or switched to an alternate route on Friday, November 30, 2018, when VSP conducted its highly publicized first special HOV enforcement campaign during I-66 tolling (carpools should have quotation marks below):  

"On Nov. 30, when Virginia State Police publicized extra enforcement of HOV or toll rules, the number of carpools dropped by 397 compared to similar days. Police wrote 32 HOV citations to people driving alone with an E-ZPass Flex in HOV mode, up from an average of 2.5 on other similar days."

Most importantly, for the following reasons, it seems likely that VSP has issued the bulk of these HOV citations along westbound I-66 in the afternoon/evening and only relatively few HOV citations along eastbound I-66 in the morning:

1. The traffic density along I-66 ITB is greater eastbound in the morning, especially between 7:30-9:00 am, compared to westbound in the afternoon/evening.  
2. Due to the previous westbound-only I-66 "spot improvements", eastbound I-66 has had far less paved shoulder space than westbound I-66 to pull over suspected violators.  
3. The act of stopping vehicles is likely to increase I-66 congestion and cause toll prices to spike further at the very time that I-66 traffic congestion and toll prices are already greatest. 
4. Now that construction activities for the four-mile eastbound widening of I-66 (from the merge with the Dulles Connector Road to Ballston) are well underway, there currently is practically no paved shoulder space at all to pull over vehicles between mile markers 67 and 71, so HOV enforcement is now largely infeasible along that segment.

Since I-66 HOV enforcement is especially difficult in the eastbound direction, while the incentive to cheat the I-66 tolls is simultaneously greatest when the toll prices are highest (eastbound from 7:30-9:00 am), it seems very likely that hundreds of solo motorists are cheating the tolls eastbound during this time of peak toll prices every day, while far less toll cheating is likely occurring in the westbound direction (and probably before 6:30 am also).

Because, since mid-2012, VDOT justified its proposal to replace the former I-66 HOV restrictions with the high-occupancy/tolling scheme on the grounds that it would effectively end the formerly rampant HOV cheating, it's incumbent on VDOT and VSP to demonstrate that toll-cheating can be minimized effectively.  The evidence documented above suggests that toll cheating has not been effectively minimized and may, in fact, be contributing significantly to the notorious $40+ eastbound I-66 toll prices.

Moreover, a similar situation may prevail on the I-95 and I-495 express lanes operated by Transurban.  Transurban may not worry about toll cheating, as long as adequate revenue is collected from its toll-paying customers.

Because the users of Virginia's express lanes deserve effective HOV enforcement, VSP and VDOT should be required to routinely collect and report meaningful data on HOV enforcement and toll cheating on every Virginia express lane facility. 

If this HOV enforcement data demonstrates that toll cheating is indeed a significant problem on I-66 ITB and/or other express lanes, the Commonwealth should conduct a full, fair, and open study to determine whether automated vehicle occupancy detection and/or automated HOV enforcement is feasible.  If automated occupancy detection and/or HOV enforcement is technically infeasible or cannot be implemented for some political reason, the Commonwealth should consider ending the exemption from tolls for HOVs. 

After all, tolling every vehicle is simpler, safer, more effective, and fairer, because the effective toll paid per vehicle occupant is directly proportional to the number of vehicle occupants.  On the other hand, risking the lives of state troopers and the traveling public to manually enforce a law that does not affect public safely seems dangerous and foolish.

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May 8, 2019 Update:

On May 8, 2019, ACST received the following additional information about I-66 HOV enforcement from David Caudill, P.E., VDOT Tolling Operations Division:
 

Since December 4, 2017, Virginia State Police troopers have issued 258 citations eastbound and 615 citations Westbound.  91 citations have been written between 7:30AM and 8:30AM.

Thus, since the tolling began, only 29.6% of the HOV citations (258/873) were issued in the eastbound direction and only 10.4% (91/873) were issued during the hour of peak toll prices (7:30-8:30 AM).

During the first 74 weeks of tolling, only 91 HOV citations were issued during the hour of peak toll prices.  Including those citations issued during the two "special HOV enforcement days" (11/30/18 and 12/13/18) but excluding the 14 federal holidays when tolling was suspended, VSP issued, on average, only about one HOV citation for every four days of tolling (91 citations over 356 tolling days) during the 7:30-8:30 AM hour (0.256 HOV citations/peak-toll-price hour).

Moreover, since VSP's report for the first 53 weeks of tolling (ending 12/8/18), the rate of HOV citations has dropped substantially.  Only 171 citations (873 minus 702) were issued over the 21 weeks since 12/8/18, including those issued during the second "special HOV enforcement day" (12/13/18).   Over those 101 tolling days (excludes four federal holidays), the average rate of HOV citations fell to 1.69/tolling day (171/101) and 0.211/hour of tolling.

This additional information about tolling in the eastbound direction and during the hour of peak daily toll prices confirms our suspicions that: 1) literally hundreds of drive-alone motorists are routinely cheating the I-66 tolls and 2) such toll cheating contributes to the high toll prices charged on I-66.

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