EZ Tag pay at Houston airports being removed (maintenance, cost)

[irishlover]

Harris County to ground EZ Tag at airports | khou.com | Local News

I'm pissed about this...I was just commenting last week at IAH how nice it was to zip out of the garage so quickly! The parking garage layout is horrendous at IAH, at least this made getting out nice.

How could this program have cost $170K a MONTH to run?

[Topaz]

My husband is furious. He travels frequently and he thinks this is a total shame. If they just managed the program better, they could have kept it.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by irishlover

How could this program have cost $170K a MONTH to run?

Well, it's like this.

The EZ Tag scanner needs to be maintained. So they need a maintenance crew. And the maintenance crew needs supervisors. And the supervisors of the maintenance crew need an office. So there need to be janitors to clean the office. And they need vending machines in the break room of the office, so they need an account for those which keeps them stocked with Diet Coke and Sun Chips. Naturally, these accounts become a lot to keep up with so they have an accounting department, which needs several vice presidents, one for the janitorial crew, another for the break room, and another to actually oversee the operations of the office that supervises the maintenance crew that keeps the EZ Tag scanners working. And all the vice presidents need secretaries.

I just made all this up on the spot, but the truth is probably just as convoluted and pointless. Bureaucracy for the win.

[XodoX]

Parking at IAH is a HUGE scam. If it wasn't expesnive as hell, you would have more people parking there. Just gotta look at all those parking places around IAH. They are packed.
You also need to register the EZ Tag. Can't just use it like this. I think they do deserve this.

Btw. The article says it's 170k a month for the airports.

[irishlover]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Well, it's like this.

The EZ Tag scanner needs to be maintained. So they need a maintenance crew. And the maintenance crew needs supervisors. And the supervisors of the maintenance crew need an office. So there need to be janitors to clean the office. And they need vending machines in the break room of the office, so they need an account for those which keeps them stocked with Diet Coke and Sun Chips. Naturally, these accounts become a lot to keep up with so they have an accounting department, which needs several vice presidents, one for the janitorial crew, another for the break room, and another to actually oversee the operations of the office that supervises the maintenance crew that keeps the EZ Tag scanners working. And all the vice presidents need secretaries.

I just made all this up on the spot, but the truth is probably just as convoluted and pointless. Bureaucracy for the win.

You're probably right...the airport should at least consider replacing the harris county system with their own "ez pay" system...maybe they could manage it better...or not.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by irishlover

You're probably right...the airport should at least consider replacing the harris county system with their own "ez pay" system...maybe they could manage it better...or not.

Well, the airport would have to hire a firm to do a cost-benefit analysis to see whether they could manage a system more efficient than the county. Upon getting satisfactory results a year and a half later, they contract out the manufacture of the tag scanners and the microchips that go into the cards the scanners read. Then these scanners must be maintained, so they have to hire a maintenance crew, as well as hire outsourced customer service representatives in India to handle reports of lost/stolen cards and other issues. They can't outsource the maintenance, since it's not cost-effective to fly people in from India to fix broken scanners in Houston, even for an airport. So the maintenance crew needs supervisors and someone to do payroll, which requires an accountant, and these people need an office. Then somebody has to come in every once in awhile if the vending machines or the microwave in the break room is on the fritz.

Then they do another cost-benefit analysis to see whether it's worthwhile to continue this operation when they weren't figuring in all this other overhead in the previous one.

[cheryjohns]

You are forgetting the $3.5 million dollar study they need to do to start it.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by cheryjohns

You are forgetting the $3.5 million dollar study they need to do to start it.

Oh, that too, and set aside another two mill for the bid process to find a firm to conduct that study.

[SteveArmy]

good. those eztag lanes just cause traffic jams, people line up on the wrong lane and are asked to back up. both ez tag people lining up onto cash lanes, cash people lining up on eztag lanes! what a disaster

[Timnwendy]

Darn, I really liked using this too! Well, the article says it will still be in place for approx. 6 months after they vote to stop it, so at least we can enjoy using it until then.