RIDOT picks the company that will restart Rhode Island’s truck tolls • Rhode Island Current
The long-awaited return of truck tolls is still on track for 2027, albeit a little later than the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) had promised.
The transportation department on Friday awarded a tentative $944,000 contract with Canadian-based Quarterhill to create a new back office system that will manage toll transactions on tractor trailers traveling over the state’s highways. It was one of nine entities to respond by the state’s March 27 bidding deadline. The others were Bridge Atlantic, LLC; Emovis USA, Inc; Kapsch TrafficCom USA, Inc; Legnetix, Inc; Neology, Inc; SWC Group; ViaPlus, LLC; and Vitronic Machine Vision, Inc.
Electronic Transaction Consultants, LLC, doing business as Quarterhill, indicated in its technical proposal that the new billing system would go online no later than May 2027. But it is possible tolls won’t go online until July, confirmed RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin.
“The contractor has a two-month period of certification following this to ensure system accuracy,” he said in an email to Rhode Island Current.”
Interim RIDOT Director Robert Rocchio told lawmakers in March he expected the truck tolls to be operational by the first quarter of 2027. But that timeline depends on how long it would take to replace the dormant equipment installed in phases on state highways in 2018 under then Gov. Gina Raimondo’s RhodeWorks program, and select a new toll collection contractor.
“As previously reported, after sitting dormant for years due to ongoing litigation, the toll infrastructure requires upgrades which will result in a one-time cost of $19 million,” St. Martin said. “That work is ongoing.”