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May 16, 2006 11:05 AM

Tolls now represent 1.1 percent of Arnold Transportation Services' total expenses, according to Richard Wolfe, director, pricing services. He made the comments May 9 at the second annual ALK Technology Summit in Princeton NJ.

He was one of the presenters at the meeting offering perspectives on the rapidly rising cost of tolls and other issues facing truck fleets, as well as ways that technology can help reduce or eliminate the challenges.

Wolfe added that only 11 percent of the toll costs was passed on to customers as accessorial charges.

According to the information, tolls are most prevalent in the Northeast, but a number of states are seeking to toll existing Interstate Highways within their borders. Additionally, there are various recent and planned toll rate increases throughout the country.

Tolls are the fastest growing area of truck taxation, according to Tom Rushfeldt, a partner with Inter-Tax Inc. In addition, he said that automated toll tags and transponders sometimes fail. When that happens, toll authorities often charge the toll from the farthest point. That means a trucker with a malfunctioning transponder could be billed the toll from one end of a toll road to the other even though he may have traveled only from one mid-point interchange to the next.

Rushfeldt said that there is little oversight for drivers with automated toll tags and those drivers are often free to use toll routes at will.