Florida DOT holds SunPass contractor accountable for ‘significant inconvenience’

July 5, 2018

Tyson Fisher

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Motorists in Florida who drive on the SunPass tolling system have probably noticed some issues over the past month as it converts to the new Combined Customer Service Center. As the Florida Department of Transportation continues to fix problems, the department is holding the contractor accountable. As of July 3, of the approximately 90 million unprocessed transactions, only a little more than 4 million have been posted on individual accounts.

On June 28, FDOT Secretary Mike Dew sent a letter to Dave Amoriell, president of Conduent State and Local Solutions, the contractor hired to implement the customer service system in an agreement signed in November 2015.

According to the letter, the system “continues to not meet the performance requirements of the agreement.” Among the many operation deficiencies are the call center, website interface and the functionality of the mobile app. Perhaps most notable to customers is the inaccurate processing of transactions.

Some SunPass customers began noticing duplicate transactions in their account. As a result, FDOT could not transmit a large percentage of transactions. Dew notes in the letter that approximately 90 million transactions had not been processed because of the lack of reliability with Conduent’s data.

“SunPass customers are now unable to use SunPass at various nondepartment locations because of the unreliability of the system,” Dew wrote in the letter. “This is a significant inconvenience to the department’s customers and undermines the department’s commitments to the owners of other facilities that rely on SunPass.”

Dew requested that Conduent provide adequate assurances within 10 days of the letter that the problems will be fixed.

On June 21, FDOT announced that the Florida Turnpike Enterprise will not be collecting late fees or penalties as the rollout of the Combined Customer Service Center experienced numerous problems. A maintenance period that was to last only a few days kept the SunPass system offline for nearly a month.

FDOT informed customers that they will continue to be charged tolls. However, individual account charges will be posted gradually over several weeks, with the oldest transactions posted first.

On July 3, the Florida Turnpike Enterprise announced that the Centralized Customer Service System had resumed posting transactions. As of July 3, more than 4 million transactions have been posted.