GREAT FALLS, Va., June 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tollsmart, LLC, a leading provider of detailed toll information on over ten thousand tolling locations across several continents, today announced that it is providing its toll price data to Google Maps for drivers in the US.

With this information, people using Google Maps will be able to view the cost of tolls in advance of a trip, and be able to make smarter driving decisions that factor in time, distance AND costs. 

"We launched Tollsmart in 2015 with the mission to help make the world smarter about tolls, and this represents a huge milestone toward that goal. With over 1 billion users across the globe, Google Maps is one of the most popular navigation apps on the planet so we're excited to deliver valuable toll prices information to Google Maps customers, especially as more tolling facilities convert to cashless tolling which can be confusing to drivers," stated Tollsmart's CEO and Cofounder Jim Kovarik.

Commenting on the announcement, Tollsmart's CTO and Cofounder Dr. Leonid (Leo) Iogansen said "Tolling systems are often local and can be quite complex and so accurately estimating toll prices across entire continents is a significant challenge which requires a great deal of technology and innovation."

Read the full press release here.

Just in time for spring, the team at Tollsmart is excited to announce that we've further expanded our coverage of European toll facilities across all of Northern Europe with the addition of eight new countries including Norway, Sweden and the UK.  This release for the first time includes tolls for congestion zones, which are fees charged for entering city centers in London, Stockholm and Gothenburg, as well as fees for ferry crossings.

The team at Tollsmart was honored recently by being invited to participate in a process to review innovative technologies for the upcoming congestion pricing program in New York City.  Congestion pricing is a way of charging tolls for vehicles that enter certain parts of a metropolitan area and is slated to be implemented in Manhattan's central business district beginning in December of 2020.  Tolls will be charged for vehicles that drive south of 60th Street, with certain exceptions such as the FDR Drive and West Side Highway.

Although similar congestion-based tolls have been implemented in several cities across the globe, this is a seminal event in the US tolling industry as New York will be the first city in North America to utilize this complex type of tolling, and many other cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC are watching closely and may soon follow NYC's lead.  

The team at Tollsmart is excited to announce that truck-specific routing is now available as an option on the Tollsmart mobile apps and through the Tollsmart API services.  Truck routing takes into consideration the dimensions of the vehicle to limit routing options to those roads where the vehicle is legally permitted to operate, or where other obstacles such as low bridge clearances may apply.  

To enable truck routing in the Tollsmart mobile apps you first need to be a subscriber to the truck version of the service and have your vehicle stored in the app. Then go into the Options menu and select Routing Provider and choose the Super-fast routing option (truck routing is now the default routing service under this option). Below are screenshots which illustrate these steps.

The team at Tollsmart is excited to announce that current prices for the I-66 and I-64 Express Lanes in Virginia have been added to the Tollsmart apps.  Although these lanes have been in the Tollsmart apps since they opened last year, they displayed only the minimum and maximum prices.  Now  that VDOT has made current pricing feeds available to developers we've integrated them into the Tollsmart apps so you can quickly see the current cost to take the Express Lanes.

For drivers unfamiliar with Express Lanes, these are lanes previously reserved for HOV traffic that can now be used by solo drivers for a fee, which can change as often as every 5 minutes based on traffic (also referred to as Dynamic pricing). There are now over 30 of these systems (which are also referred to as HOT Lanes or Managed Lanes) across the US with many more planned, and all are included in the Tollsmart platform (click here to learn more about Express Lanes on Tollsmart). 

Tollsmart has always been an innovator, beginning with the launch of the first toll calculator to work across all tolling facilities in the US and Canada in April 2015. We soon followed by adding support for commercial vehicles and trucks, an innovative toll tracking service and then support for dynamically-priced Express Lanes.

We're now excited to add another first to the list, full support of all toll facilities in Mexico! This means you can plan a trip from Quebec City in Canada all the way down to Acapulco, Mexico and see the toll cost for the entire trip. This is an important addition as tolls are prevalent in Mexico and the costs can be quite high, often higher than in the US and Canada which means our alternative routes feature can help save a bundle of pesos. That's right, pricing is displayed in Mexican pesos, but don't be too alarmed at seeing prices in the thousands as the current rate of exchange a Mexican peso equates to about a nickel in US currency ($1 MX = $.053 US).

Similar to the other geographies we cover, support is provided for all vehicle sizes including commercial trucks and there is a map view as well as a list view option that provides a detailed breakdown of all the tolls you'll encounter on your trip, and these can easily be emailed as a CSV file for reporting or expense purposes.

This new update also informs travelers of the method of payment accepted at each tolling facility using colored pins to quickly identify facilities that only accept cash (red pins), and includes discounts for electronic payments for using transponder accounts unique to Mexican toll facilities.  These transponder options have now been added to the Tollsmart menu allowing users to select their transponder account to determine which toll facilities accept them.

Earlier this spring the team at Tollsmart was delighted to be invited to present at a TechBUZZ event in Washington DC alongside other exciting and fast growing startups in the mid-Atlantic region. The event, which was put on and run flawlessly by MAVA (Mid-Atlantic Venture Association), began with a demo area where attendees got to interact first hand with the startup members and try out their products, followed by visionary keynote speaker Alec Ross.

After that came two rounds of startup presentations delivered at a blistering pace, with each presenter given four minutes to present up to ten slides.  We used the opportunity to educate the investor community on our product, the size of the market and our traction, including announcing our new partnership with Bestpass, 

We had a great time and thank Kimberly, Julie and the whole TechBUZZ crew who helped make it a first-class event, and strongly recommend it to other startups seeking to raise capital or simply get their name out in the mid-Atlantic region.

(In photo on left Tollsmart Cofounder and CTO Leo Iogansen speaks with a TechBUZZ attendee while company advisor Jeff Wolff looks on)

A few short months ago we announced that we added support for four Express Lanes in the Tollsmart apps (two in the DC area and two in Seattle) with the goal of rolling out all HOT/Express Lanes in the US. Today we're thrilled to announce we've achieved that goal and that Tollsmart now supports every Express Lane in the US. This means that Tollsmart will alert you to any Express Lanes along your route so you know you'll have an option for avoiding traffic when traveling through metro areas. No other mapping service provides this type of visibility into tolling information. Tollsmart is maps like you've never seen before.

Real Time Pricing for Seattle's I-405 Express Toll Lanes

Equally exciting is that Tollsmart now displays real-time toll rates for the 405 Express Toll Lanes that bypass Seattle from Belleview to Lynnwood, WA. This means that commuters can view the current prices for taking these lanes before hopping in their cars to head to work,  thereby making more informed decisions. The pricing feeds are made available by WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) the agency that operates these lanes, and they provided the following comments on why they're making this information publicly available: 

We know how important real-time information is to people and want to help drivers make informed choices about their route options.  That's why we decided to make I405 express toll lane rates publicly available as a live, open-source data stream. We're happy to see apps using this data and hope that it will give drivers a more predictable trip so that they can take more control over their commute.

We applaud WSDOT's transparency and efforts to educate drivers on how tolling on these new lanes work and encourage other state agencies to take similar steps to make this information broadly available to the traveling public.