It Pays to Clean Toll Plazas

by Valarie Rose Johnson | Published September 2025

 

 

Even as scanners capture information from transmitters embedded in license plates and affixed to windshields – or simply grab data from GPS trackers, toll plazas continue to function across the country.

One certainty: Where toll plazas still stand, they must be cleaned.

How long until toll plazas vanish? It’s difficult to estimate but make the safe bet they will disappear before highways do.

Longevity of the plazas is just one consideration for any contractor who wants to enter the niche. Difficulty of access, distance from one plaza to another, and surroundings (vehicles of every size and configuration spewing exhaust and keeping the decibel level high) are other considerations.

Cleaning toll plazas may present as many difficulties as kitchen exhaust cleaning. But at least there’s no grease, right? Wrong.

Vehicle exhaust and lubricants can accumulate in impressive amounts. The residue forms a slick veneer on all kinds of surfaces. Then, there’s dirt, salt, and ‘other’.

Some states require that each toll booth has a restroom, so booth attendants need not walk to a central location. (The fewer individuals trekking through the toll area, the safer everyone is.) Restrooms must also be cleaned.

A bid process is the usual path to a contract for cleaning toll areas. The state or other jurisdiction that operates the plaza will issue it. And the details of bid requirements give the fullest picture of the complexity attached to toll plaza cleaning.

For some contractors, the toll-plaza niche may not be an option because of geography. Some states have no tolls.

An easy way to gain an understanding of the scope of toll booths in a particular state is to consult the tally offered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. See ‘Toll Facilities in the United States’ via https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/tollpage/page08.cfm.

The FHWA tabulation includes information about the entity that has responsibility for each toll area. Such entities are the place to begin when seeking contracts to clean.

There are also commercial purveyors of information about toll booths. Among them is TollGuru.com.

Hydrocarbon residue is familiar to any contractor who cleans parking lots, city garages, shopping centers and the like. Thus, many contractors could easily transfer methods and tools to a new setting – the tool plaza, if they wished.

“I know our surface cleaners are used at toll plazas,” says Maxwell Baldwin, owner/director of operations at Whisper Wash in St. Petersburg, FL. “This is a great use of our products.”

Methods? “I can’t speak to any specific process that a particular contractor has,” explains Baldwin. “As each person has developed their own techniques and ways that work best for them.”

But there are methodologies that transcend specific settings. “[Generally] speaking, our products are best used on concrete on flat surfaces,” says Baldwin. “Our surface cleaners are a great option for quickly getting the dirt, grime, and residual salt residue left over from high traffic areas.”

And Baldwin offers an observation about the utility of the tools his company makes. “Most people will agree a properly regulated gpm surface cleaner is exponentially more efficient and effective at clearing larger areas compared to a wand only setup.”

In fact, a combination of tools often is the best way to approach a task. Yes, that includes the task of cleaning toll plazas.

“Typically, one can do edges and borders with a wand or curb cleaner setup and then either utilize a medium or larger machine like our Big Guy or Mini Mondo up to our larger Mondo Force, or five-foot or even eight-foot Hippo series,” says Baldwin. “This allows the user to really make quick work of all the flat surface concrete in the plaza.”

The “quick work” is significant. “Time is money for these crews and having a surface cleaner that can clean as large of an area as possible is your best bet in maximizing profitability,” explains Baldwin.

 

Is it a match?

The residues may be the same and the tools familiar, but is cleaning toll plazas just like cleaning a parking garage? Only the individual contractor can decide.

The International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association (IBTTA.org) is a good place to get some fast facts on tolls and why jurisdictions use them. The short of it is that the federal gas tax – along with any tacked-on state tax – results in insufficient funds for road maintenance.

We have all read about the mounting difficulties for states with a large number of electric vehicles. The weighty vehicles use the road, but bypass some (hybrids) or all (EVs) the gas taxes at the pump. Adding tolls – not necessarily toll plazas, is a way to recoup some of revenue.

And although in general there are fewer and fewer toll plazas – thanks to the combination of digital identification and transponder technology, there has been an increase in the number of states with toll roads. In 2012, there were 35 states with at least one toll road. In 2025, there are 38 states.

Robert Poole, the director of transportation policy at the libertarian organization Reason, published an interesting commentary last year (January 25, 2024) titled “The future of U.S. toll agencies”. Read the article – no paywall — (https://reason.org/commentary/the-future-of-u-s-toll-agencies/) to get more insight into the geography of toll roads.

One surprise extracted from the Poole commentary: Florida ranks as the “most-tolled state”. At that, however, only 1.2 percent of the Sunshine State’s roadway lanes are tolled.

There’s a general correspondence – as most drivers can infer – between tolls and heavily-used roads. The heavier the use (and the more significant the wear), the more likely there are to be tolls.

New Jersey Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike and New York Thruway are among the well-known heavy-use and tolled roads. The roads also have long histories. Pennsylvania Turnpike and New York Thruway can trace many of their roadcuts to the Native American trails that first established paths for transit and commerce.

In the interest of efficiency, it’s always possible that our nation will move in one giant leap to a consolidated system of tolls and toll collection – all of it done electronically with revenue apportioned for road maintenance to the responsible jurisdiction. But the safe bet here is it will not happen.

So, opportunities for cleaning toll plazas will continue. Find RFPs [request for proposals] and RFQs [requests for quotations] at state websites. Also search USA.gov for RFPs and RFQs for specific states. And have a look at the IBTTA.org site, which consolidates and disseminates RFPs and RFQs submitted to it by members.

Which are the sorts of expectations a contractor will find in an invitation to bid. Consider an example from the ITR Concession Company LLC (ITRCC), a privately-owned entity that finances, operates and maintains the Indiana Toll Road.

ITRCC issued an invitation to bid March 18, 2021 — the objective was “external toll plaza bunker cleaning” at three locations. Bidders had 13 days to respond. And they were encouraged to visit the sites prior to bidding. Bidders did not have to be Indiana DOT pre-qualified contractors, but if they were, it might be considered a plus.

What’s really fascinating about the ITRCC invitation to bid is the upfront notification that the winning contractor will not be reimbursed for tolls incurred on the Indiana Toll Road when completing the project. The winning contractor also has responsibility for coordination with local government agencies, utilities, railroads, etc. and obtaining any permits necessary for road closures or roadside work and so on.

Something to consider, based on the Indiana example: Cleaning will be the easy part. Logistics can be difficult. ‘Onerous’ is the word that comes to mind before difficult.

Florida RFPs tend to be very prescriptive on methods. A contractor will not have to decide how to approach a project given the solicitation will have spelled out the approach. For instance, the expectation in one RFP is to “pressure clean” the canopy over the plaza but to be certain the signs, items, reflective lighting around the plaza are “hand washed and rinsed”.

In other words, contractors will find often radically different lists of expectations depending on the state (and/or owner of the toll plaza). One commonality in the RFPs we reviewed is the detail given to how the contractor/vendor will be paid. A great amount of itemization is required.

Contractors who prefer to work on a lump-sum-and-let-us-get-the-job-done basis may not be comfortable working through multiple levels of itemization. And, in the same context, realize that many entities soliciting bids give only one option to bidders: Quote a per square-ft. price for flat surfaces.

Obviously, with the amount of itemization required and ancillary tasks (e.g., permits) for which the contractor may have responsibility, no bid for toll plaza cleaning should ever be submitted without a site visit to the prospective work areas and a thorough evaluation of which methods will get the job done, how much time it will take, and what could go wrong.

Stout-hearted contractors looking to enter a new niche might consider cleaning toll plazas. But be sure about the determination to do so