E-ZPass

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E-ZPass is the electronic toll collection system used on most toll bridges and toll roads in the northeastern United States from Virginia to Maine, and recently extended into Illinois. All states use the same technology, allowing travelers to use the same E-ZPass tag throughout the network. Various independent systems that use the same technology have since been integrated into the E-ZPass system. These include Fast Lane in Massachusetts, Smart Tag in Virginia, and most recently I-Pass in Illinois.

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[edit] Functionality

Each state or agency has its own billing and customer service center (CSC), and the CSCs are connected by a secure network (the "reciprocity network"). The agencies also set their own customer account policies. Areas of variation include the refundable deposit or nonrefundable charge for a tag, periodic maintenance fees, paper statement fees, the low balance threshold, and replenishment amounts. E-ZPass is usually offered as a debit account: tolls are deducted from prepayments made by the users. Users may opt to have prepayments automatically deposited when their account is low, or they may submit prepayments manually. Some agencies also allow postpaid accounts with a security deposit (which effectively renders them much like prepaid accounts with a different replenishment policy).

Several agencies offer discounted tolls to E-ZPass customers. The details vary widely, and can include general discounts for all E-ZPass users, variable pricing discounts for off-peak hours, commuter plans with minimum usage levels, flat rate plans offering unlimited use for a period of time, carpool plans for high-occupancy vehicles, and resident plans for those living near particular toll facilities. Many of these plans are only available to customers whose tags are issued by the agency that owns the toll facility in question. (Reciprocity only applies to tag acceptance, not to discounts.) The three New England turnpike authorities (Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire) restrict even their general discounts to their own respective tagholders.

E-ZPass tags are RFID transponders, made exclusively by Mark IV Industries Corp - IVHS Division. They communicate with reader equipment built into lane-based or open road toll collection lanes. The most common type of tag is mounted on the inside of the vehicle's windshield behind the rear-view mirror. Some vehicles have windshields that block RFID signals. For those vehicles, an externally-mountable tag is offered, typically designed to attach to the vehicle's front license plate mounting points.

Most E-ZPass lanes are converted manual toll lanes and must have fairly low speed limits for safety reasons (5 and 15 mph are typical). In some areas, however (typically recently built or retrofitted facilities), there is no need to slow down, as E-ZPass users utilize dedicated traffic lanes ("Express E-ZPass") outside the toll booth (examples include Delaware Route 1, Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, the Garden State Parkway's express lanes, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Warrendale and Mid-County (I-476) Toll Plazas). In addition, Illinois is undertaking a US$730 million project to add open road tolling for IPass/E-ZPass users at every toll plaza on the Tollway system; a few plazas, such as the 163rd Street Toll Plaza on the Tri-State Tollway, already had a similar high-speed setup called IPass Express and will not be modified in the Open Road Tolling project.

Each E-ZPass tag is specifically programmed for a particular class of vehicle, and while any valid, working tag will be read and accepted in any E-ZPass toll lane, the wrong toll amount will be charged if the tag's programmed vehicle class does not match the vehicle. This will result in a violation and possible large fine assessed to the tag holder, especially if a lower-class (e.g., passenger car) tag is being used in a higher-class vehicle such as a bus or truck. In an attempt to avoid this, E-ZPass tags for commercial vehicles are blue in color, contrasting with the white tags assigned to standard passenger vehicles. The blue E-ZPass is also used in government employee vehicles. In the New York metro area, an orange E-ZPass is issued to emergency vehicles.

Depending on different Service Centers, there may or may not be periodic account fees. After New Jersey began losing money with the E-ZPass system, a monthly account fee of 1 USD was implemented on July 15, 2002 [1] and is still in effect. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey also charges a monthly account fee of 1 USD. The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority imposed a monthly account fee starting on July 1, 2005 claiming to defray the administrative costs [2]. However, as such a fee was considered to threaten the efficiency of moving traffic faster with lower tolls, New York State Republican Senator Michael Balboni sponsored Bill S06331 to prohibit administrative service fees on E-ZPass accounts. The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority repealed the monthly account fee on June 1, 2006.

[edit] History

The notion of electronic tolling had been considered as early as the 1980s, particularly in the New York metropolitan area. The tolling agencies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — which constitutes two-thirds of the country's $3 billion a year toll industry — sought to create a compatible electronic tolling technology that could be used on the toll roads and bridges of the three states, in an effort to reduce congestion on some of the busiest roadways and toll plazas in the United States. In 1991, the E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG) was created to develop an interoperable system, and involved the participation and cooperation of seven independent toll agencies — The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, The New Jersey Highway Authority (operator of the Garden State Parkway at the time), the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the New York State Thruway Authority, and the South Jersey Transportation Authority (operator of the Atlantic City Expressway).

Under the direction of Peter Tufo, the Chairman of the New York State Thruway from 1989-1996, E-ZPass was first deployed on the Thruway at the Spring Valley toll plaza on August 3, 1993. Over the following three and a half years, the New York State Thruway Authority (NYSTA) installed electronic toll collection equipment, in stages, along the Thruway. By February 6, 1997, E-ZPass had been installed along the entire length of the corridor.

Meanwhile, various other agencies began work on similar electronic toll collecting facilities. This resulted in the emergence of other networks:

  • The MassPass system used in Massachusetts, now changed to the compatible Fast Lane.
  • The I-Pass system used in Illinois.
  • The Smart Tag system used in Virginia.
  • The TransPass system used in Maine, since replaced by the E-ZPass system.
  • The M-Tag system used in Maryland, which was integrated into and then rebranded as the E-ZPass system in 2001.
  • Indiana Toll Road Concessions Corporation plans to upgrade toll plazas to include E-ZPass functionality on Indiana East-West Toll Road.
  • Ohio Turnpike Commission plans to upgrade their system to be compatible with E-ZPass by end of 2008 for the Ohio Turnpike (I-76, I-80, I-90).

Originally, these systems were not interchangeable with E-ZPass. However, since most of them use the same technology (or have since converted over to a compatible technology), all of them have been incorporated into the E-ZPass network. Though several still retain their own brand name for their own facilities, users of those systems can use E-ZPass and vice versa.

Until 2005, drivers crossing the Peace Bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York paid a toll before crossing to Canada. Following upgrades to the border crossings in 2005, drivers instead pay a toll on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge after clearing Canadian customs. This is the only known E-ZPass toll booth outside of the United States. The toll goes to the Peace Bridge Authority, a bi-national agency that is charged to maintain the international bridge.

Currently the E-ZPass electronic toll-collection system as well as the other related ETC systems are currently not compatible with E-Pass, SunPass or other ETC systems outside of the E-ZPass operating regions. E-ZPass ETC transponders will not work in States such as Florida.

[edit] E-ZPass Plus

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey offers to E-ZPass subscribers who replenish their accounts with a major credit card (i.e., American Express, Discover Card, MasterCard or VISA) the ability to pay for parking at three Port Authority airports — John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport, through a program known as E-ZPass Plus. This program is also available at Albany International Airport in Albany, New York. Drivers obtain tickets as they enter the parking lots, as usual. Upon exiting the parking lot, individuals use either the "E-ZPass Plus Only" or manned lanes. Those wishing to pay using their E-ZPass accounts simply insert the ticket into the machine reader. The parking payment is debited from the prepaid E-ZPass account if the parking fee is less than $20. If it is more than $20, the amount is charged directly to the credit card used to replenish the E-ZPass account. The Port Authority reports that drivers save an average of 15 seconds by opting to pay for airport parking using E-ZPass.

In Atlantic City, New Jersey drivers can now park at the New York Avenue Garage and pay for their parking by E-ZPass Plus.

At this time, subscribers who replenish their E-ZPass accounts with cash or a check cannot participate in this program. Additionally, this service is only available to customers with New York (PANYNJ, MTA or NYS Thruway), New Jersey, Delaware (Delaware DOT, DRBA or DRJTBC), or Maryland E-ZPass accounts.

[edit] Other Non-Toll Uses for E-ZPass

E-ZPass was tested by some McDonald's restaurants on Long Island, New York, where drive-thru customers are given the option to pay using their E-ZPass accounts. This program has ended and only tolls and parking are now supported by E-ZPass.

At Pittsburgh International Airport, an E-ZPass tag can be used for the "Go Fast Pass" system. Drivers use special lanes to enter any of the on-airport parking lots. On exit, parking fees are charged to the Go Fast Pass account (usually direct charge to a credit card). There is no connection to the E-ZPass network; the Go Fast Pass merely uses the unique identifier in the E-ZPass tag as an account identifier.

[edit] Technology details

The E-ZPass system is part of a much larger US DOT ITS set of projects.[1]

The E-ZPass technology can be used not only for toll collection, but also allows vehicles to become "probes." In commercial vehicles, it is envisioned as an "Automated Vehicle Identification (AVI) electronic license plate." In England, this transponder electronic license plate technology is now required for all registered vehicles.[2]

In U.S. commercial vehicles, it is envisioned that with the advent of a federalized (common across states) license, a mechanism will be provided to individual drivers to use their commercial drivers licenses to identify themselves to a vehicle's E-ZPass transponder. This will allow not only WIM (weigh in motion) measurements for the vehicle class, but also updates of the transponder's memory for determining the current driver of the vehicle.

This is why the E-ZPass transponder implements a read/write technology, as opposed to read-only, which would suffice if its intended purpose was solely for toll collection.

In 1991, the original seven agencies jointly adopted an interagency policy statement that endorsed a plan to procure a unified and compatible system of tags and readers. The plan sought to ensure that one automatic vehicle identification toll tag could be used for travel throughout the entire region. The testing and selection of an electronic toll collection system motivated the representatives from these toll agencies to form the E-ZPass Interagency Group.

The first obstacle that the E-ZPass Interagency Group members had to overcome was the issue of whether to purchase a read-only or a read-write system. The agencies with tollbooths that collect a fixed toll only needed read-only technology. The toll authorities with closed toll systems desired the read-write technology so that they could track entry as well as exit points of their customers. Additionally, all recognized that if an electronic toll collection system was to migrate to the communications methods required for advanced traffic management and traveler information systems, the electronic tags must be capable of two-way communications. After a period of negotiations, the members reached a consensus and selected the read-write technology.

The data generated by the TRANSMIT project is a key component of the Model Deployment Initiative. When merged with other data supplied by the TRANSCOM member agencies, it will form the basis for providing accurate, up-to-date, and much-needed travel information to the commuting public.

TRANSCOM members, many of whom are also involved with the E-ZPass effort, saw the benefits of building incident detection and congestion monitoring functions upon the E-ZPass system. Additional readers could be installed along the highway to provide TRANSCOM with regional incident detection and congestion management data. The members postulated that, while maintaining customer anonymity and confidentiality, vehicles participating in the E-ZPass system could be used as probes to detect congestion and incidents and assess such factors as vehicle speed and travel times. Therefore, they moved forward to assess the feasibility of and to design an advanced traffic management system operational test based on electronic toll collection technology.

TRANSCOM members reasoned that, if the operational test was successful, it could ultimately provide the region an extensive traffic surveillance system at a reasonable incremental increase over the cost of providing electronic toll and traffic management for toll collection only.[3]

[edit] List of E-ZPass Agencies

The following agencies accept E-ZPass at their toll facilities:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.its.dot.gov/index.htm
  2. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2002/11/29/emnplat30.xml
  3. ^ http://orwellian.org/public_ITS_docs/ITS_001.pdf

[edit] External links

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