February 11, 2015 8:30 PM

Sparks fly as TxDOT and Xerox face senators angry over TxTag problems

Xerox estimated it mailed out 30,000 bills that could have contained potential errors

Xerox’s inability to grasp the scope of the back office management of Texas toll roads is a headache that stretches to every toll road operator in the state and the frustrations were on full display during a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

Oklahoma has one turnpike authority. Texas has multiple toll operators through the creation of toll road, turnpike and regional mobility authorities. All these authorities, however, theoretically share an interoperable toll tag.

During a Senate Transportation Committee hearing, Texas Department of Transportation’s top officials offered profuse apologies for rough start-up of Xerox’s management of TxTag’s back office operations, which includes the mailing of statements, the maintenance of customer call centers and the disbursement of toll collections to various toll operators across the state.

John Barton, the deputy executive director of TxDOT, acknowledged the customer service issues currently plaguing TxTag and pledged to resolve the problem.

“I’ll begin by apologizing to our customers and to the citizens of this state,” Barton told the committee. “They deserve to be better served than they have been recently, and we’re making improvements.”

By Kimberly Reeves