Electronic Transaction Consultants Goes Live with its Ohio River Bridges Toll Services

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Sep 07, 2023, 06:30 ET

Milestone marks the completion of the system development phase and the commencement of the toll operations phase.
ETC now manages ORB's customer service centers and back-office system.
ORB's toll system supports economic development, propelled by safer and more efficient travel throughout the area.
New, locally based call center.

TORONTO, Sept. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Quarterhill Inc. ("Quarterhill" or the "Company") (TSX: QTRH) (OTCQX: QTRHF), a leading provider of tolling and enforcement solutions in the Intelligent Transportation System ("ITS") industry, announces that the transfer of the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges – RiverLink Project' ("RiverLink") back-office toll operations to the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Electronic Transaction Consultants ("ETC"), is now complete. ETC assumed management of RiverLink's customer service centers and back-office system on September 1, 2023.

The RiverLink toll system, operated by the Kentucky-Indiana Joint Board, consists of three bridges that span the Ohio River, connecting Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana. In July 2021, ETC was awarded a 10-year contract with RiverLink that includes three years for system design and implementation and seven years for toll service operations. The contract also includes two optional three-year renewal periods.

ETC is providing RiverLink with riteHorizon™, its full-suite of tolling enterprise back-office solutions. riteHorizon capabilities include account management, customer relationship management, an online customer service center, reporting and analytics. Monitoring and maintenance tools are also a key part of riteHorizon to ensure high availability and customer billing accuracy.

ETC has partnered with WSP USA Services Inc. ("WSP USA") on this project, with ETC providing the back-office system, and WSP USA managing contact center interactions for RiverLink customers. This partnership pairs ETC's best-in-class back-office technology with WSP USA's leading services for highway customer service centers. As part of the contract with RiverLink, a new locally based contact center has been built, which will provide for new jobs in the region.

"This highly anticipated milestone marks the completion of ETC's system development and the commencement of the toll operations phase with RiverLink," said Kevin Holbert, Chief Executive Officer at ETC. "We are proud to support RiverLink's efforts to provide world-class infrastructure to its constituents, to improve mobility and safety in this important river-crossing area and to generate resources that support future infrastructure and economic development. We are confident that our tolling solutions will provide RiverLink and the citizens of Indiana and Kentucky with dependable operations and the highest quality of customer service."

ETC's riteHorizon solution maximizes self-service and customer service representative productivity, reduces turnaround times, and places direct configuration and process control into RiverLink personnel's hands. The new system streamlines billing, improves ease of website and mobile self-service, and facilitates speedy question and issue resolution for RiverLInk's 275,000 registered customers and visitors.

For the first time, riteHorizon is being delivered on Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure. Migrating toll systems to the cloud offers multiple benefits, including reduced time to implement systems vs. on-premises infrastructure, reduced maintenance burden by switching to a model that uses infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service, reduced capital expenditures for deployment of IT infrastructure, reduced downtime due to the greater reliability of engineered cloud solutions, and improved reliability enabled by a cloud-based disaster recovery environment that satisfies the agency's business continuity requirements.

About Quarterhill

Quarterhill is a leading provider of tolling and enforcement solutions in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) industry. Our goal is global leadership in ITS, via organic growth of the Electronic Transaction Consultants, LLC (ETC) and International Road Dynamics Inc. (IRD) platforms, and by continuing an acquisition-oriented investment strategy that capitalizes on attractive growth opportunities within ITS and its adjacent markets. Quarterhill is listed on the TSX under the symbol QTRH and on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol QTRHF. For more information, visit www.quarterhill.com.

About Electronic Transaction Consultants, LLC

ETC is a leading U.S. intelligent transportation systems provider, developing and delivering best in class solutions for tolling, congestion management, urban mobility, and multimodal transportation needs. ETC's passionate and innovative team has been driving the future of mobility since 1999, with several industry firsts, including all electronic tolling (AET), dynamic pricing, agency interoperability, hosted mobility solutions and machine learning.

For over two decades, ETC has delivered sophisticated solutions to many of the U.S.'s largest toll authorities, including state-wide programs, county networks and tolling-specific authorities. ETC's solutions process over two billion transactions annually totaling over $3 billion in revenues for our customers, incorporating the latest in evergreen open-source and SaaS technologies and Big Data architecture through our innovative riteSuite™ products.

About the Ohio River Bridges Toll System

The Ohio River Bridges RiverLink toll system in both Kentucky and Indiana spans the Abraham Lincoln Bridge (I-65 North), the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge (I-65 South) and the Lewis and Clark Bridge (SR 265/KY 841) connecting Prospect, KY and Utica, IN.

The Louisville Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges project is a bi-state collaboration to increase cross-river mobility, improve safety, alleviate traffic congestion, and connect highways. The project includes the construction of the new Abraham Lincoln Bridge to carry northbound I-65 traffic, the rehabilitation of the Kennedy Bridge to carry southbound I-65 traffic, the reconfiguration of Spaghetti Junction in downtown Louisville, and the construction of the Lewis and Clark Bridge eight miles upstream from downtown Louisville to connect the Snyder Freeway and the Lee Hamilton Highway between Prospect Kentucky and Utica Indiana. The I-65 bridges and the Lewis and Clark Bridge were completed in December 2016.

Forward-looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding Quarterhill, its operating subsidiaries and their respective businesses. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by Quarterhill in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and the expected effects of new business strategies, as well as other factors that Quarterhill believes are appropriate in the circumstances. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed herein may not occur and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting Quarterhill, which include, without limitation, the risks described in Quarterhill's March 22, 2023 annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2022 (the "AIF"). In addition, readers are also urged to review the additional risk factors disclosed in our Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three and six months ended June 30, 2023 filed on www.sedarplus.ca. Quarterhill recommends that readers review and consider all of these risk factors and notes that readers should not place undue reliance on any of Quarterhill's forward-looking statements. Quarterhill has no intention, and undertakes no obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

SOURCE Quarterhill Inc.