TEL tolls hit technical hitch

Technical difficulties have hampered the first day of the new Tauranga Eastern Link, with a new online tolling system used to pay for tolls and create accounts currently offline.

The $455 million route officially opened to the public this morning, but a message on the New Zealand Transport Agency website says: 'We are currently experiencing some problems with our new online tolling system.


Life on the new Tauranga Eastern Link got off to a grey, damp start this morning as it opened to the public. Photo: Colin Lunt.

'Our team is working to fix the problem. The system will be temporarily unavailable while this issue is resolved.”

The new electronic tolling system was rolled over the weekend, and it is now in use on both roads and the Northern Gateway Toll Road (north of Auckland).

The state-of-the-art system means customers will be able to pay for toll trips on all three roads using the same payment system, and account customers only need one account to use all three routes.

However, NZTA group manager of access and use Celia Patrick says there have been some technical issues with the new system in terms of being able to accept online payments.

'We have teams of people working on getting the online payments system up and running,” says Celia, 'and we hope to do this as soon as possible.”

Celia says customers can still use all three roads.

'There is no impact at all to customers who have a tolling account with the transport agency,” she adds.

Customers without an account can pay by cash at BP or Caltex stations, check the website later, or call: 0800 40 20 20 to make a payment.

'We are waiving the administration fee for telephone payments until the online payment option becomes available,” explains Celia.

'We ask that customers have their credit or debit card and licence plate number to hand to pay their toll.”

Celia says given the scale and complexity of the new system change, NZTA always anticipated there would be some teething problems and have taken steps to ensure that any impact to customers would be kept to a minimum.

'We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this issue is causing and we are working hard to resolve it as soon as possible,” she adds.

Prime Minister John Key officially opened the multi-million dollar highway on Thursday.

The 21km, four-lane route is one of seven Roads of National Significance identified by the government as being crucial to building New Zealand's economy.

It includes seven bridges, the country's biggest roundabout, a new 6.8km cycleway, and one of the largest public art pieces currently on display in New Zealand – a 130m long pa sculpture.

Key information from NZTA:

  • People can still travel on the toll roads.
  • The transport agency has extended the period to pay toll from 5 to 19 days during this time.
  • People can call the contact centre on: 0800 40 20 20 to make a payment (please have your credit or debit card and licence plate number to hand).
  • People can pay cash or use EFTPOS at selected BP or Caltex service stations to pay their toll. You can pay for a single trip or multiple tolls on an individual toll road and purchase up to 10 tolls per toll road in one transaction.
  • NZTA has temporarily waivered the admin fee for calling their contact centre to make toll road payments. This has been in place since the system went live on Thursday night.
  • Customers with accounts are unaffected.
  • No other Transport Agency transactions are affected.

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5 comments

Hitch??

Posted on 03-08-2015 13:03 | By mlow

Its been OFFLINE since Friday!!!!!!!!!!


Minor glitch

Posted on 03-08-2015 13:55 | By peecee09

What an amazing project the TEL is. It makes one proud to be a local. Everyone involved should be congratulated for their fantastic effort in providing us with this newest addition to Tauranga's infrastructure. The toll account glitch is a minor factor, and will be sorted. Thank you all.


MUPPETS

Posted on 03-08-2015 15:47 | By commonsense

Its actually been offline since last Wednesday.


seesee

Posted on 03-08-2015 16:08 | By SeeSee

Congratulations to all who in some way created this wonderful road. It is a road to be very very proud of, and it is so well finished off. Shows what NZ is capable of.


@SeeSee

Posted on 04-08-2015 07:17 | By sambo's back

its a bloody road!!!!, yes its wonderful, but compared to the Arthurs Pass link its only just that,another road, for heavens sake its what engineers get paid for, they havent split the atom, ooops sorry another "Kiwi" has already done that, now that is something to be proud of!!!.


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