Hate having to stop and dig through your change to pay Illinois tolls? One startup wants to bring a little innovation to the tollway system.
Currently, to avoid a ticket on Illinois' tollways you have to stop and pay with cash and coins or get an I-PASS, which doesn't always make sense for the person who only occasionally drives on the state's highways.
Enter FastToll, and iOS and Android app that lets drivers go through Illinois tolls and pay their fares through the app at the conclusion of their trip. FastToll tracks all the tolls a person goes through, and you have seven days to pay. FastToll directs users to the Illinois Tollways website to complete the transaction.
FastToll takes a $0.99 transaction fee, or 10% of the total cost if you go through multiple tolls. The startup was built by Pragmistic, a Las Vegas-based company founded by Radek Mista. Mista, a former Wisconsin resident, said he would occasionally drive on Illinois' tollways and hated having to pay every single toll.
"It felt like I was stopping every 10 minutes," he said. "It was very annoying."
With FastToll, you're charged the regular cash fare of going through a toll; with an Illinois I-PASS, you pay 50% less. Mista admits that from a cost savings perspective, it makes more sense to use an I-PASS if you're a frequent Chicagoland driver. But of the roughly 35,000 downloads FastToll has seen, around half are based in Chicago, according to Mista. When he launched the app last summer, he assumed it would largely attract out-of-town drivers who wanted to convenience of automated tolling without having to purchase an I-PASS.
FastToll is currently only available in Illinois, but Mista says he plans to bring the service to more tollways across the country.
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