ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Thruway Authority generally bills drivers accurately for tolls. That’s according to an audit that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released Tuesday. The audit identified some exceptions and recommended better monitoring and corrective actions. “The Thruway Authority has come a long way since it first introduced cashless tolls, […]
ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Thruway Authority generally bills drivers accurately for tolls.
That’s according to an audit that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released Tuesday. The audit identified some exceptions and recommended better monitoring and corrective actions.
“The Thruway Authority has come a long way since it first introduced cashless tolls, but some problems remain,” DiNapoli said in the announcement. “Even a smaller percentage of unreadable or inaccurate tolls can mean loss of revenue to the state or aggravation for New Yorkers facing incorrect bills. I appreciate the efforts the Authority has undertaken to fix the issues we identified.”
A few findings
In 2024, Thruway reported $1 billion in toll and related revenues, up from $804 million in 2021, DiNapoli’s office said. E-Z Pass accounts for 95 percent of all tolls collected in 2024. DiNapoli’s previous audit from May 2023 found the Thruway Authority needed to improve its collections process.
The latest audit found improvements but work that still needs to be done, DiNapoli’s office said. For example, auditors looked at collections over a three-week period and found 92,000 tolls couldn’t be charged because vehicles’ license plates were not readable. At one exit, interchange 25A near Schenectady, some 36,000 tolls were incorrectly charged and another 8,000 that should have been charged but were not, for an error rate of about 5 percent.
The audit also found Thruway needed to provide stronger oversight of the more than 12,000 non-revenue E-Z Pass tags that do not get charged, as well as the toll discounts it gives to certain drivers. In looking at a random sample of 75 non-revenue tags, the Thruway Authority was unable to provide supporting documentation for the eligibility of 46 (61 percent) tags, “making it unclear" whether eligible individuals were using them.
Thruway Authority response
DiNapoli’s office noted that the Thruway Authority generally agreed with the audit findings and said it has already taken steps to implement some of the recommendations.
The DiNapoli audit included a letter to the state comptroller’s office from Frank Hoare, executive director of the New York State Thruway Authority, reacting to the recommendations in the audit.
One such recommendation reads, “Periodically review transactions to ensure tolls were correctly charged, identify the cause of incorrect charges, take appropriate action to prevent it from recurring, and document those where no action is deemed necessary.”
In response, the Thruway Authority said, “The Authority agrees with OSC’s (Office of the State Comptroller) finding that tolls are accurately charged, with a limited number of exceptions. The Authority routinely conducts reviews of toll transactions to ensure the integrity of the tolling system but it agrees it should continuously improve the quality assurance process to further mitigate incorrect tolls being charged.”
