California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

The Carquinez Bridge ETC project is a pilot project of a statewide toll bridge improvement project undertaken by Caltrans. Caltrans owns and operates nine toll bridges statewide. Over the last five years, traffic on all area bridges has increased from 129 million vehicle crossings in Fiscal year (FY) 1992-93 to 140 million in FY 1996-97, with an average annual rate of 2 percent as indicated in Figure 1.  However, the toll facilities are antiquated.  The bridges use a toll collection system known as Toll Registration, Audit and Collection (TRAC) installed in the early 1980s, and tolls have been collected manually by toll collectors in tollbooths. With the significant growth in traffic volume in the bridges and deterioration of the facilities, Caltrans decided to replace the TRAC system with the ETC system on all bridges.