Overview

In 1987, several toll agencies in the Northeast Corridor spanning New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania began to explore the potential regional application of an emerging technology known as Electronic Toll Collection (ETC). ETC is a technological advance that allows a motorist traveling on a participating toll facility to pay his/her toll automatically from a prepaid account without having to fumble for cash or retrieve and present a toll ticket. By placing a small electronic tag on a windshield of a car, that car can pass through a toll lane equipped with a “reader” that collects and transmits customer account status electronically to the appropriate toll agency and the correct toll is charged to or credited against that customer’s account.

In 1990, seven toll facilities from the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania joined to form an alliance known as the E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG). These seven agencies represented almost 40% of all U.S. toll transactions and nearly 70% of all U.S. toll revenue. This unprecedented cooperative effort included representatives from the New Jersey Highway Authority (operator of the Garden State Parkway), the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the New York State Thruway Authority, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the South Jersey Transportation Authority (operator of the Atlantic City Expressway), and the MTA Bridges and Tunnels. The IAG’s goal was to implement a regionally compatible, non-interfering electronic toll collection system that would not only satisfy the divergent toll collection and traffic management needs of the seven participating agencies, but would also provide regional mobility and convenience to their customers.

Today the E-ZPass Program is the largest, most successful interoperable toll collection program anywhere in the world consisting of toll agencies/companies in 20 states, over 37 million accounts, over 64 million transponders and the collection of over $14.7 billion dollars in electronic toll revenues and $17.7 billion in total revenue.

The E-ZPass Program has continued to be innovative by implementing E-ZPass Plus which makes paying for parking at participating airports and garages easier along with E-ZPass-on-the-GO, a convenient package that contains a prepaid tag ready for use that is sold at convenient locations such as participating local convenience stores, rest areas, DMV's or simply ordering online.

Additionally, the IAG is spearheading an initiative to streamline in-vehicle payments with the Driven by E-ZPass Program.