I had a boss once, who, whenever our Washington bureau would experience some kind of software glitch, was fond of saying: “You know technology is working the way it should when you don’t have to think about it.”
This frequent saw comes to mind because, like tens of thousands of Florida drivers over the past month or so, I’ve been wondering what the heck is going on with SunPass — the state’s automatic billing/collecting platform for toll roads from Wildwood to Wilton Manors.
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For anyone in this state who drives a good amount for work or pleasure — especially between Interstate 4 and Alligator Alley — SunPass is one of those “conveniences” that we’ve all come to despise and depend on every day.
That’s why the mess that has been made of the online toll system for the last several weeks has got so many drivers who frequent Florida’s Turnpike, for example, spouting more noxious fumes than their vehicles.
And now these drivers — many of them taxpayers already footing the $287 million bill for this botched “upgrade” — are beginning to question whether they should shoulder the burden of being back-billed for tolls.
My answer: No … at least not all of them. The state would earn a whole lot of goodwill with drivers if the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) forgave, say, 50 percent of your tolls during the troubled period. And where would the money come from?
Well, state officials could start with Conduent State & Local Solutions, which has the contract to run customer service technology for Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise. It is their fault, after all.
A quick Post Opinion Zone blog poll last week asking, "Should SunPass customers pay for tolls during the system's outage?" garnered nearly 300 votes, with 83 percent voting "no," 10 percent voting "yes," and 7 percent voting "partially."
And Florida Democratic leaders are demanding the state suspend all SunPass toll collections until the system is fixed, and to appoint an independent auditing committee to investigate FDOT's "mishandling of the SunPass electronic tolling system upgrade" — or what they're calling "Tollgate."
Waiting on an upgrade
This mess started early last month, when the SunPass Centralized Customer Service System went offline for what was supposed to be a week’s worth of upgrades and be completed June 11. But work on the system dragged on for nearly a month, during which time SunPass customers continued to accumulate toll charges, but could not track them.
What does that mean? Well, if you’re a commuter who depends on SunPass to keep an accurate record of tolls to be reimbursed by your employer, you’ve got a problem.
Many SunPass users have had difficulty using the customer service website, call line and app, and have seen wrong charges posted to their accounts — or no charges posted at all, despite passing through toll stations. Conduent is working through a backlog of about 170 million charges that weren’t processed.
As of Friday morning, more than 137 million of the transactions had been processed. “SunPass is working diligently to clear the backlog of toll transactions,” FDOT spokeswoman Kim Poulton said in a statement.
Right. And meanwhile, even though its tolling problems still haven’t been resolved, the state amended a second contract with Conduent on July 1, awarding the company about $100,000 more — paid in $10,000 monthly increments — to install new tolling software, hardware and equipment.
SunPass users are understandably outraged. And one can hardly blame them.
‘Completely unacceptable’ …
The state seemed to be a bit perturbed too. FDOT Secretary Mike Dew called the delays “completely unacceptable.”
“The department anticipates and expects that Conduent will continue to improve the operations of the SunPass call center, the website interface, the functionality of the mobile application interface and the availability and reliability of SunPass Plus, so that SunPass customers are provided the premium level of service they are entitled to expect,” Dew wrote in a July 16 letter to Conduent President David Amoriell.
Amoriell advised the week prior that the company had already made “substantial improvements in recent weeks and will continue to strive for your complete satisfaction.”
Issues remaining from the upgrade include the effectiveness of the SunPass website and mobile application; multiple charges being applied through the payment processing system; and the expanded SunPass Plus application at airports, which has been slow or unresponsive at airport gate systems when entering or exiting parking facilities.
As part of the conversion, SunPass Plus parking was expanded from Orlando International Airport to include Miami International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Palm Beach International Airport and Tampa International Airport.
But since then, both PBIA and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood have temporarily shut down the SunPass Plus application because it was still having problems.
Dew, in the July 16 letter, told Maryland-based Conduent that the state was halting payments to the company until all the changes in the SunPass Centralized Customer Service System project are deemed “fully operational.”
… But still getting paid?
Not so, according to Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis' website. A day after Dew sent the letter, FDOT paid Conduent more than $265,000. On July 19, FDOT paid Conduent almost $10,000 more.
The second payment was tied to a different 10-year contract with Conduent worth more than $13 million that was signed in April 2017. According to the CFO’s website, that contract is for Conduent to provide “information technology consultation services” as a “toll equipment contractor” — the same service as the first contract.
That’s grating. Especially if you’re a SunPass customer who has been billed for using the service despite not having driven on a toll road in more than a month.
Not surprisingly, many SunPass customers have had enough.
According to The Palm Beach Post's Jodi Wagner, Orlando food delivery driver Mike DiMauro has started a petition asking SunPass to waive all tolls incurred by customers during the disruption of service to its customer service system. DiMauro also wants Conduent to pay for them.
“Why should we, the SunPass customers, pay for the tolls during their outage?” he told Wagner. “It’s SunPass and Conduent’s fault, not ours. Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi should go after Conduent and sue them for the toll money during the outage, not getting it collected from the customers.”
A bit more than I was suggesting, but still a novel idea that could certainly catch on.
DiMauro began his petition, in part, because he expects to be hit with a huge bill once all his transactions are posted. The petition, which has been shared on social media, was at nearly 3,600 signatures as of Friday morning. DiMauro is hoping to get to 5,000.
“I hope to get the attention of the state government, and have action be done so that it would help the drivers out there,” he said.
I’m with you, Mike.
And now drivers … are beginning to question whether they should shoulder the burden of being back-billed for tolls.
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