Toll System Tested at Delaware River Crossing

Turnpike's new "toll-by-plate" system starts in January.

Credit: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission

A rendering of the new all-electronic toll system as seen coming from the Delaware River Bridge crossing into Pennsylvania. Credit: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission

When you cross the Delaware River from New Jersey next year, you might want to smile: Cameras will be watching.

A new tolling system is coming to the Pennsylvania Turnpike in January 2016, affecting drivers who use the toll road to cross the Delaware River and connect to I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. AET, or All-Electronic Tolling, will make use of either E-ZPass or your car’s license plate to collect the a toll coming across the Delaware River crossing into Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) said in a press release.

Here’s how it will work:

Drivers crossing into New Jersey, eastbound, will come to the soon-to-be-completed Neshaminy Falls toll plaza — an across-the-road booth, not an interchange — and pay the trip-based toll with either cash or E-ZPass. E-ZPass users can either slow to 5 mph and use the regular toll booth or proceed through the toll on express lanes at 55 mph. Drivers can then either stay on the bridge to New Jersey or exit the highway at Route 13 in Bristol without stopping again.

Drivers coming from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, westbound, will pass through the overhead gantries pictured above, where they will pay a flat toll — the amount of which is yet to be decided — either via E-ZPass or their license plate. The Toll-by-Plate system will use cameras on the gantries to take a photo of the car’s license plate and send a bill to the vehicle’s registered owner. Drivers can then get off I-276 at Route 13 without paying again, or continue on to the Neshaminy Falls toll plaza, where the trip-based ticket system for the Pennsylvania Turnpike will begin. E-ZPass express lanes will be available at the westbound toll area as well.

The existing toll plaza at the Delaware River Bridge will be decommissioned and eventually destroyed after the full conversion to the electronic system. Until it is destroyed, drivers will simply pass through it without stopping to pay another toll once the electronic system is in place. The toll plaza at the Route 13 interchange will also be decommissioned at the time of the AET’s completion and eventually demolished.

The project, aside from being a pilot program for the electronic tolling system, is meant to free up the flow of traffic that will come onto and off of the Turnpike at I-95 — between the Neshaminy Falls toll and the Route 13 interchange and Delaware River crossing — once that construction project is complete around 2017.

Carl Defebo, a PTC spokesman, said that bills will occur monthly. E-ZPass will continue to be the easiest and least costly way to go through tolls on the Turnpike, Defebo said.

The AET system is a pilot program, one which comes after the emergence of electronic-only toll plazas in other states such as New York, where the MTA’s Henry Hudson Bridge (Manhattan-Bronx connector) is a cashless operation. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission expects to install an AET plaza on the Beaver Valley Expressway (I-376) outside of Pittsburgh as well, using the two sites to test out the technology before moving forward with it across the entire Turnpike.

“We intend to carefully observe these AET pilots to identify and address any issues before significant and irreversible decisions are made about future conversions,” PTC Chairman Sean Logan said in the press release. “We will be analyzing payment and enforcement procedures, customer and employee impacts and AET conversion costs prior to advancement of this new tolling system.”

The release also noted that no employee layoffs are expected as a result of the transition.