Some Harris County toll road drivers are paying too much

(2/28/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- EZ Tag drivers, check your bill. You could be overpaying for your trip around Houston.

The Harris County Toll Road Authority is taking action, but only after we started asking questions about some new technology designed to catch toll way cheaters.

Half a million vehicles a day pass through Harris County toll booths. Kandy Carroll is one of those drivers.

Carroll uses an EZ Tag and is supposed to be charged one dollar every time she passes through a toll booth, but recently she was charged more.

"I noticed the charges were $2.75 instead of the dollar that they are supposed to be," said Carroll.

And she is not alone. Dozens of drivers a day are being charged $2.75 instead of the one dollar due. The Harris County Toll Road Authority says new technology that counts a vehicle's axles is behind the problem.

"It's an automatic vehicle classification," said Fred Philipson of the HCTRA. "We bought the best in the industry and it is used by most of the toll road authorities that I know of worldwide and it is very accurate."

The reason the toll authority is counting axles is simple. They found some truck drivers who pull trailers claimed to be using the EZ Tag in a car. Meaning they only pay a dollar when they should be paying $2.75. That's cheating the system. But the technology used to catch the cheaters is occasionally overcharging car drivers. Even though the error rate is less than one percent, the automatic vehicle classification system is now off line while the toll authority figures out how to improve it.

"If we overcharge one customer, that's one customer too many," said Philipson.

The toll road authority does not know how many people may have overpaid, but officials are currently reviewing bills from the time the new technology went on line until now to find out.

"If we find anything, we will credit on that statement proactively. Those folks do not have to call us," said Philipson.

Kandy Carroll says the overcharges have her checking her bill very closely.

"If you don't look at your bill, you are not going to know," said Carroll.

As usual, we have more on the Consumer Blog. There you will find the result of this story from the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

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