The people who run four toll roads in Orange County are refining their tactics to tell drivers how to pay their tolls electronically.

The focused strategies, which include outreach to tourists and hiring more customer service workers, come amid persistent confusion about the new toll-collection system.

Drivers continue to rack up more than 17,000 violations a day three months after the roads switched to all-electronic collections. Violations and dropped calls to customer service lines are running at about the same clip as they were in mid-May, despite efforts by the toll road agencies to teach drivers how to pay via the electronic system.

The agencies’ newest efforts target a small population of drivers who don’t use the toll roads regularly but, in the agency’s view, account for a disproportionate number of violations and calls to customer service lines.

The toll road agencies’ boards of directors voted last week to spend $800,000 to hire 26 temporary full-time customer service employees and pay overtime for existing support staff.

The temporary employees will help the agencies cope with a 400 percent increase in calls to customer service lines, a 300 percent increase in email inquiries, and other service demands that have increased more than agency officials anticipated after the transition to cash-free tolling.

“This is a classic example where we underestimated the number of folks who were going to be confused by our change, despite a ton of outreach and everything else,” said TCA board member and Orange City Councilman Mark Murphy. “So now we need to make it as easy as possible for people to address the situation.”

The agencies expect to need the temporary staffers for about six months, when demand on customer service is expected to return to normal.

The increases in violations and customer-service calls are driven in large part by infrequent toll roads users, who make up about 4 percent of daily ridership, said Michael Kraman, CEO for the toll road agencies, which manage the 73, 133, 241 and 261 tollways.

But because the infrequent drivers are different every day, reaching them is difficult and expensive.

“It’s a longer learning period with those people,” Kraman said. “It takes us awhile to identify them, and then have that communication link with them to educate them.”

The difficulty in reaching the infrequent customers is borne out in violation statistics.

First-time violators are responsible for about 40 percent of the approximately 1.2 million enforceable violations logged on the four roads between May 11 and Aug. 2, according to information the toll roads provided to the Register.

Each violation, technically, could result in a fine of $57.50. For now, toll road operators are forgiving violation penalties for first-time drivers who pay their tolls within 30 days of receiving a violation notice. The violation-forgiveness program had been scheduled to end on Labor Day, but toll officials are planning to extend it. A new end date has not been set.

Some board members have expressed concern that the so-called “4 percenters” will be a perpetual problem for the roads. They worry that the cost of serving infrequent travelers – or the loss of regular customers who get frustrated and quit using the roads – will cut into the $4 million the agencies expect to save each year by replacing manned toll booths with automatic license plate readers and all-electronic payment.

Toll road staff said they anticipated extra costs during the transition to all electronic-payment and did not include anticipated savings in the agencies’ budget for the first year after the switch.

In recent weeks, officials have seen a plateau in violation counts and calls, which seems consistent with the experience of other toll agencies that switched to cash-free payment. Staff said it appears the roads are on track to return to business as usual by early next year.

“There is a four- to five-month time frame where it (violation counts and call volumes) sort of leveled out, and they (other toll agencies) got back to what they would consider normal in about eight months,” Kraman said. “We still look at it as positive sign that there’s a plateau, and we try to keep a positive attitude.”

In the meantime, the toll road agencies are trying to help the 4 percenters by tailoring outreach and customer-support improvements to meet the group’s needs.

For example, customers no longer need to know where they got on and off of the roads in order to pay tolls online. They can simply select “unknown” when inputting a location.

“We found that with this population, a lot of them are unfamiliar with where they were on the road, so that’s why we added the feature (to select) ‘unknown,’” Kraman said. “And that has worked out really well in terms of people needing to call us.”

For the drivers who do call customer service, a recent change to call center technology is expected to lower the number of calls that get dropped, though it may increase wait times, Kraman said.

“It might mean the wait time goes from 10 minutes to 20 minutes, but we feel like that’s preferable to not being able to get through at all,” Kraman said. “I hope the public views that as an improvement.”

The toll roads also are trying to reach the 4 percenters before they get behind the wheel by focusing outreach to rental car companies.

“The most important thing is to let people know there are toll roads in Orange County, and here’s what you need to do to use them,” Kraman said.

The toll road agencies also are trying to be more lenient toward first-time violators, extending the violation-forgiveness program and giving people a week, not just 48 hours, to pay their tolls.

“We’re not wanting to ding those people because we’re the ones who made the change,” Kraman said. “The onus is on us to educate them about … how to use the road.”

Contact the writer: mcook@ocregister.com