Update, 6/7/2017: Plastic finally accepted at Mackinac Bridge booths

ST. IGNACE, MI -- It was about 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 27 when Drew Mason realized he was missing something important as he neared the Mighty Mac.

Cash.

Mackinac Bridge tollbooths on Sept. 24, 2015.

Mason, a videographer filming the Michigan Capitol Christmas Tree journey south from Sault. Ste. Marie for Lansing's Silver Bells holiday event, did what many drivers crossing the bridge have done in recent years and pulled out his iPhone to check whether he could pay the toll with a credit card.

Google's answer came in a "featured snippet" atop its search results page. Yes, the Mackinac Bridge began accepting credit cards at the toll lanes in May 2015. Ask Siri, and she'll confirm it. Armed with that, Mason pulled into the lane, whipped out his plastic and got a surprise.

Ah, nope. The tollbooths still only accept cash or a pre-paid "MacPass." Mason had to park, take a staircase over the toll plaza, wait inside the bridge office for several minutes and ask an office worker to run his card to pay the $4 toll.

"They were definitely annoyed with me," said Mason.

Although Google had steered him wrong, the office staff had heard it many times before. In January 2015, the Mackinac Bridge Authority announced that it would begin accepting credit cards in the lanes that May as part of a coordinated software update at the Mackinac Bridge, the International Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie, and the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.

The upgrade has been in the works about four years. Unfortunately, things have not gone smoothly over the last two.

According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act records request, technical glitches, stalled contract negotiations and a near-six month unexplained absence of the primary subcontractor have seriously delayed the project, which is now several hundred thousand dollars over the initial budget.

In August, the Mackinac Bridge Authority said it hoped to have credit card processing ready in the booths by the end of 2016, nearly two years after it made the initial announcement. That timeline has now been pushed again.

"We're hoping to be able to process in the lane the second quarter next year," said Jim Normandin, the bridge system upgrade project manager with the state's Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

"Ideally, probably before Memorial Day Weekend."

Deploying the swipe-and-go option for drivers at the Mackinac Bridge is one of the final hurdles in completing a multi-year, multi-bridge deal that dates back to October 2012, when the state signed a seven-year, $6.9 million contract with Xerox State & Local Solutions, a division of global business services giant Xerox.

Xerox agreed to provide the hardware and software necessary to bring the three public bridges, which had been running an obsolete FoxPro software system, into the 21st Century. Main elements of the deal were installation of credit card processing in the lanes and a video system to record each transaction.

Over the years, the bridge has heard escalating requests for the credit card option, but what might seem like a simple, common-sense upgrade is actually far more complicated. Managers have long worried that accepting plastic at the booths could slow traffic, which nobody wants. In order to avoid toll plaza backups, booth workers need to average about 11 seconds per car during peak traffic times. As seconds mount, so do the lines.

Although the state was upgrading its software and merging onto the plastic payment expressway, the International Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie -- which has experienced its own unique headaches arising from a toll plaza facelift project that began in 2014 -- elected not to pursue credit card processing in the lanes.

Nonetheless, there's a growing demand that is burdening Mackinac Bridge office workers. About 10,000 of the 3.4 million-plus vehicles though the booths in 2014 had to pay with a credit card, and traffic has been increasing.

The initial software testing and staff training started in St. Ignace and Port Huron in April 2015. Card readers were installed in Mackinac tollbooths in June, but the project soon ran into technical delays associated with clearing Canadian payments without converting them into American dollars, integrating Xerox's proprietary toll software - which is hosted on servers in Tarrytown, N.Y. - with Michigan centralized electronic debit card payments authorization system, and ensuring transaction encryption was secure.

By February 2016, project leaders were warning upper management that transactional security and integration with the state payment system was still not ready. The Mackinac Bridge was asking for card processing in the lanes by March, but by then the project was running into trouble with a subcontractor.

Xerox tapped multinational e-commerce servicer VeriFone for tollbooth terminal hardware. VeriFone sells a service called PAYware Connect, a secure payment processing system designed for online devices. However, to deploy that software in the tollbooths requires an additional separate contract between the state and VeriFone, which would be paid $17 per terminal, per month.

That contract is still under review by the attorney general's office, which balked at the contract indemnification language. Although the Mackinac Bridge already accepts credit cards in the office, Normandin said conditions are different under the new contract and payment process.

The legal review has been compounded by a complete and unexpected loss of communication with VeriFone between June and November. The bridges, DTMB, MDOT, Xerox and VeriFone were supposed to be having bi-weekly meetings, but in an Oct. 31, 2016 project "red" status report, Normandin wrote "VeriFone is not responding to MDOT calls so the approval of the contract has stalled."

The company, which did not return a message seeking comment, has "re-engaged" with the project as of early December, says the state, but VeriFone has apparently offered little explanation for the six months of radio silence.

Messages to Xerox seeking comment on the project were also not returned.

"We left voice mails, we sent emails (to VeriFone)," said John Kalanquin, DTMB agency services section manager. "Our understanding -- and we don't know the details -- is that there were some personal issues with their representative."

The state has resumed working with that person, but spokespersons for both MDOT and DTMB expressed displeasure at the holdup.

"We're certainly disappointed," said James Lake, northern Michigan region spokesperson for MDOT. "We've been telling customers this service has been coming for quite some time. We certainly wished it was in place by now."

"We understand that issues come up," said Caleb Buhs, DTMB spokesman. "But there needs to be redundancy and backups in place. That is definitely a concern."

Although the International Bridge decided to forego card processing, that and the Blue Water Bridge are still waiting for everything to be resolved in Mackinac before software upgrades there are finally deployed, said Normandin.

The state has held back about 15 percent of its regular progress payments to Xerox for each bridge because of the delays. Xerox has received more than $2.7 million of the $3.3 million due upon project completion, with another roughly $4 million to be paid in future maintenance, support, licensing and a software hosting costs for the Xerox Vector 4G system.

When it's all finished, motorists should be able to swipe a card and roll on. Drivers approaching the toll plaza will choose a lane based on their payment method. Currently, a decision about whether drivers will insert new EMV chip cards -- the new system meant to provide more transactional security but which generally causes a processing delay -- is pending.

The "thought is that if you had a chip card, you'd swipe it," said Normandin. "One of the goals of this is to get traffic through in a quick manner."

Despite the delays, Kalanquin says people should remember that credit card processing is still not a common payment method for American toll bridges. Once the system is ready, Michigan's bridges will actually be ahead of the curve.

"EZ Pass and people in the lane collecting money is the typical way," he said.

"Go to New York some time."