Chase Manhattan to Run Toll Roads

Chase Manhattan Bank will be paid nearly $10 million to take over a chunk of the day-to-day operation of Orange County’s toll-road network.

The decision Tuesday to strike a three-year deal with the bank, which has experience running turnpikes in New York and New Jersey, comes just days after county toll-road officials severed--at a cost of $5.5 million--their stormy relationship with technology contractor Lockheed Martin IMS.

Chase Manhattan will handle customer telephone calls, parcel out the ubiquitous FasTrack transponders and move customer accounts onto the Internet. Chase, which performs similar tasks for toll roads in New York, New Jersey and Delaware, will begin work Dec. 29.

The bitterness that marked the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ troubled relationship with Lockheed boiled to the surface as toll-road officials prepared to ink the Chase Manhattan contract. The agency had agreed to pay $5.5 million to get out of its contract with Lockheed and avoid any legal fights that might have followed. During Tuesday’s contract discussions, toll-road directors repeatedly quizzed lawyers on whether the new contract protects them from potential lawsuits.

“Is there something in this contract that lets us agree to disagree instead of paying $5.5 million to get rid of these people?” asked toll-road director Harold R. Kaufman, a Dana Point councilman.

Officials also complained that they had been unable to obtain reports from Lockheed and asked agency lawyers if the new contract gives them greater muscle to get their hands on those reports.

“I want to know if you guys learned some lessons,” toll-road director and county Supervisor Todd Spitzer said to the lawyers. “I’m tired of arm-wrestling.”

In each case, agency officials and lawyers said the new contract is an improvement over the old one. “Obviously, this time we’re working from experience,” said Colleen Clark, the agency’s chief financial officer. “We know what it is we want and what we need this time.”

Officials pointed out other safeguards as well, such as a requirement that the contractor be bonded for $10 million. “In case any of their employees mishandle funds or do anything inappropriate,” said Walter D. Kreutzen, the toll-road agency’s executive officer.

Officials said that the work Chase Manhattan was hired to perform centers on maintaining customer transponder accounts and customer service--work a banking company is far more suited to than a technology firm. The transponders allow motorists to glide through tollway plazas without having to grind to a halt to pay a booth operator. The transponders are essentially scanned, and a charge is added to the customer’s account.

Chase Manhattan Bank was part of a consortium of firms that worked to automate East Coast turnpikes. In New Jersey, that effort faltered at one point, and the state fined one of the firms for excessive delays. Clark said that officials were familiar with the case but that Chase Manhattan was not found to be at fault.

“We couldn’t find a negative comment. . . . That says a lot,” Clark said.

Based partially on the agency’s experience with Lockheed and on the varied tasks required to operate the toll network, the agency is breaking up the tollway operation into four separate contracts. Lockheed has been handling all aspects of the toll-road operation until now.

The contract struck Tuesday chiefly concerns customer service, an area the agency feels has been poorly handled. Future contracts will be awarded for administration of toll-booth workers, maintenance of roadway technology, and processing and collecting from toll violators. Accounting, finance and facilities maintenance will be handled by the agency itself.