As someone from a city covered in tolls, Richmond, the workers serve what may seem like an insignificant but very important role. They provide change and do so quickly.
Atleast in Virginia, the attendants are usually off to the right side with the other slower traffic. They have the change available right away, usually in several different sets for the most common ways of paying. I believe the big bucket machines used to provide change back when tolls were well under a dollar, but they would just overfill since most people didn't even know they could get change back and were just mad they didn't have correct change. Some kind of vending machine style system of people trying to insert dollars on the highway would just cause more problems.
Its been especially awful recently when they've tried to remove them. EZ-Pass has started to become fairly common, but so has the ubiquitness of debit cards and credit cards so people are lacking cash and change more often. The automation on tickets has increased to near perfect levels, so when someone doesn't have change on hand they end up trying to back up and cross over several lanes to the single one or they root around in their car for minutes looking for any change when there are no attendants.
Atleast in Virginia, the attendants are usually off to the right side with the other slower traffic. They have the change available right away, usually in several different sets for the most common ways of paying. I believe the big bucket machines used to provide change back when tolls were well under a dollar, but they would just overfill since most people didn't even know they could get change back and were just mad they didn't have correct change. Some kind of vending machine style system of people trying to insert dollars on the highway would just cause more problems.
Its been especially awful recently when they've tried to remove them. EZ-Pass has started to become fairly common, but so has the ubiquitness of debit cards and credit cards so people are lacking cash and change more often. The automation on tickets has increased to near perfect levels, so when someone doesn't have change on hand they end up trying to back up and cross over several lanes to the single one or they root around in their car for minutes looking for any change when there are no attendants.