20 Years Of E-Z Pass: New Jersey To NYC Toll Crossings

Happy 20th birthday (in New Jersey), E-Z Pass.

On Friday, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials reminded local drivers that it’s been 20 years since the toll paying device known as E-Z Pass made its debut on its six bi-state crossings.

Use of the device has soared since its debut, officials said. These days, nearly 84 percent of all Port Authority bridges and tunnel traffic pays for the crossing with E-Z Pass, up from a mere 10 percent when the agency first installed and activated the E-ZPass system in June 1997 at the Bayonne Bridge.

The E-Z Pass program was rolled out at the Port Authority’s other crossings in the following months and quickly became a “defining moment” for local commuters, said Mark Muriello of the E-ZPass Group, who also serves as the Port Authority’s Deputy Director of Transportation Development & Revenue Programs.

According to the E-Z Pass Group, here’s how the device came to prominence in New Jersey:

“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.

“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.

“Today the E-ZPass Program is the largest, most successful interoperable toll collection program anywhere in the world consisting of 38 agencies in 16 states, servicing more than 18 million accounts, 30 million tags and the collection of over $8 billion dollars in electronic toll revenues.”

Learn more about E-Z Pass in New Jersey here.

Send feedback to eric.kiefer@patch.com

Patch file photo