2009 Annual Report

For the past several years, Turnpike management has placed a high priority on reducing operating costs. In 2009, work continued in earnest to find ways to lower our operating costs, become more efficient, and provide safe, highquality service to our customers.

The cover of this year's report, a simple barcode, is intended to represent our efforts to become operationally more efficient. In that regard, the K-TAG program is the most visible example of added efficiency in the Turnpike's history. In October of 2009, the turnpike restructured its toll design to provide economic incentive for our cash customers to become electronic (K-TAG) customers.

At the same time, management launched an aggressive K-TAG marketing program, including tag sales through retail business partners such as Dillons, Walgreens and AAA of Kansas. These efforts, including K-TAG toll discounts, have substantially increased our K-TAG customer base.

As you will see in our financial section, our 2009 operating costs were $2 million less than in 2008. This reduction was achieved through a variety of steps, most notably from reduced staffing. In fact, our number of full-time employees has declined 11 percent since 2006.

Despite the world economic climate and its impacts in our home state, the Kansas Turnpike continued to invest in the maintenance of our infrastructure in 2009. Work continued as planned on replacement of the bridges over the Kansas River in Lawrence, the most ambitious and expensive project in our history. In addition in 2009, KTA also opened a new interchange in Leavenworth County and reconstructed the EZ GO convenience/fuel store at the Lawrence Service Area.

As we go forward in 2010, we will continue to search for ways to operate more efficiently. Our approved operating budget for 2010 is more than $600,000 less than what was actually spent in 2007. We expect to achieve further operating cost reductions over the next two years largely through the deployment of machines that will permit many of our cash customers to manage the toll payment themselves without the aid of toll collection employees.

We are proud to provide this vital link to the Kansas economy.