E-ZPass® is an electronic toll collection system used in 13 US states, designed to keep traffic moving and reduce the need for toll collectors. It offers prepaid accounts with electronic tags fitted to vehicles, allowing automatic registration and deduction of tolls. Some agencies offer discounts to E-ZPass® users, and express lanes have been installed to minimize speed reduction.
The toll booth is the nemesis of most long-distance car travelers, especially in the chaotic Northeastern Corridor of the United States. E-ZPass® is an attempt to keep traffic moving, streamline toll collection, and reduce the number of toll collectors needed. It’s currently used in 13 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, and the same technology works in all of them. The Ohio Turnpike is the latest adopter of E-ZPass®, planning to install in 2009.
E-ZPass® was born in the early 1990’s to help ease congestion on some of the busiest highways in the nation: the New York Thruway, New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Turnpike. Its first experimental use was at the Spring Valley toll booth on the New York State Thruway on August 3, 1993. Within four years, E-ZPass® had been installed all along that highway.
The basic system offers drivers who frequently use toll roads the opportunity to create a prepaid account. An electronic tag is then fitted to the vehicle, each containing a computer chip that “talks” to a transponder antenna in one of the designated E-ZPass® lanes on a highway or at the entrance to a bridge or tunnel. That antenna will automatically register the passage of the vehicle and deduct it from the prepaid account.
In an effort to encourage use of this program, some agencies offer a toll discount to E-ZPass® customers or carpoolers. A person who lives near an E-ZPass® toll and needs to use it frequently may also receive a discounted rate for that particular site. Some car rental companies have begun installing E-ZPass® transponders on their vehicles as a perk.
At first, the vehicles had to slow almost to a stop for the antennas to connect with the attached tag. Inside a closed toll booth, safety considerations were obvious. In recent years, however, highways and bridges have begun installing “express E-ZPass®” lanes on the outer perimeter of the toll booth structure, allowing vehicles to whiz by with minimal speed reduction.
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