Washington State Tolling Gets A Massive Upgrade

If you’ve driven across SR 520 (the world’s longest floating bridge) or through the SR 99 tunnel or on one of the other tolled highways in Washington State, you likely paid your toll bill online or by calling a customer service representative.

On July 2, the Good To Go! tolling system and customer service center received a major upgrade. It transitioned to two new vendors, ETAN and Shimmick. Both mygoodtogo.com and the customer service center were offline until July 12 while the WSDOT Toll Division and vendors migrated more than one million customer accounts to the new system and set up customer service operations at a new location in Renton, Washington.

Only a handful of tolling systems have gone through this kind of vendor transition in the United States, and it’s certainly not uncommon for projects like these to have delays or challenges. Thanks to the hard work of WSDOT, ETAN, and Shimmick, this transition was a roaring success.

What’s new?

Good To Go! now offers a variety of self-service functions that make paying a toll bill and managing an account much easier. The old website was just that, old. Or as my mother would say, “It had character.”

Now, with a brand-new website and the option to pay as you go, WSDOT has seen a really positive response from customers.

What was MFA’s role in the project?

For the past two years, the MFA communications team has been helping the Toll Division prepare for this transition by:

• Keeping our legislators informed about the project’s status.
• Setting up regular meetings with the project team to discuss preparation and progress through the transition.
• Drafting a plan detailing the preparation steps and transition plans.
• Drafting several appendices detailing methods of coordination and communication throughout the transition.
• Setting up coordination points throughout the transition.
• Assisting the WSDOT Toll Division communications team by monitoring social media and staffing the hotline while the call center was closed.

Charla Skaggs, Kate Elliott, Sidney Counts, and Will Henderson worked closely with the Toll Division’s lead transition team led by the Director of Systems and Engineering, Jennifer Charlebois.

MFA previously worked on the launch of the SR 99 tunnel tolling and provided similar project coordination services while assisting the Toll Division Communications Manager, Emily Glad.