NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- The MTA missed out on about $56 million over a nearly two-year period in “unbillable tolls,” according to a report by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
The report said the MTA could not send bills for about 6 million crossings from September 2019 through June 2021.
Nearly $34 million of that lost money came from the authority’s vendors not having agreements with out-of-state DMVs in order to get the proper information.
Another almost $22 million comes because plates had a variety of issues — from brightness to missing a state name.
Just under $3 million in losses were due to “poor images,” according to the audit.
The comptroller has asked the MTA to change its algorithm for choosing which pictures it takes in from tolls. Currently, while six pictures are captured, the system picks just one from each side of the car.
Of eight recommendations for changes, only two were seen as fully implemented, while four were deemed partially implemented, and two, including the problems with rejected pictures, were seen as “not implemented.”
The report comes after a 2018 audit that found that because license plate images couldn’t always be processed, lost revenue potentially hit $2.4 million on the single bridge using cashless tolling during the period researched.
Cashless tolling is now used at all of the MTA’s tunnels and bridges, and all vehicles not utilizing E-ZPass are sent tolls bills. MTA’s Bridge and Tunnels contracts two vendors for the process — where one captures transactions, and the other operates the E-ZPass NY Customer Service Center, which performs a multitude of jobs, including violations processing.