State weighs destruction, retention of toll records
Antonio Caban/SHNS
New electronic tolling gantries have been constructed along the Massachusetts Turnpike. The state plans to destroy records from the old system once this new system goes into effect.
If you used an old Fastlane transponder on the Massachusetts Turnpike 18 years ago, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation likely has a record of that trip.
MassDOT on Wednesday sought approval of a new records retention schedule as it plans to convert to all-electronic tolling Oct. 28, and plans to request authority to destroy records dating back to 1998, the first year that the transponders were used, said Steve Collins, MassDOT's director of tolling.
"The previous administrations didn't have a record-retention policy in place, so therefore those records continue to be maintained," Collins told reporters after a meeting with the state's Records Conservation Board.
If the request is approved, records would be destroyed up until the new schedule, which calls for the state to retain EZPassMA records for the length of the account plus one year.
Collins said the records are stored off-site and in addition to Fastlane and EZPass data, they include reports generated from cash collection, electronic tolling reports and old letters.
It is literally a generation's worth of data on a tolled road system that carries well over 100,000 drivers per day the length of the state. On the Boston extension of I-90 alone, there are between 103,000 and 128,000 drivers per day, plus 70,000 on the Ted Williams Tunnel, according to a triennial inspection of the Metropolitan Highway System that relies on a 2010 study.
Collins confirmed the amount of data is massive and said, "That's why we want to get rid of it."
As the state streamlines toll collection by replacing toll plazas and toll-takers with camera-festooned gantry structures straddling the highway, MassDOT officials will also seek approval to destroy old warehoused records.
The Records Conservation Board on Wednesday opted to approve MassDOT's plans to retain speed data for 30 days. The electronic tolling system gauges the speed of passing cars to take accurate photos of license plates and predict when a vehicle will arrive at the next gantry, Collins said.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack has said the state has no plans to use the system to determine whether people are driving above the speed limit. Pollack also said MassDOT only releases data to authorities under a subpoena.
Collins said the MassDOT plan calls for photos of vehicles who do not participate in electronic tolling to be retained for seven years, while photos of EZPass drivers' plates would be kept for three months.
Collins plans to confer with a representative from the state comptroller's office about the retention of vendor-related electronic tolling contracts.
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