E-ZPass - Accounts and Agencies

Accounts and Agencies

Within the IAG, each member agency has its own billing and customer service center, and each establishes its own fee and discount structures. 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 account 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. For commercial accounts, some agencies allow postpaid plans with a security deposit (which effectively renders them prepaid accounts, with a different replenishment policy).

Some agencies have imposed periodic account maintenance fees on their subscribers. After New Jersey began losing money with the E‑ZPass system, a monthly account fee of one dollar was implemented on July 15, 2002 and is still in effect for both individual and business accounts. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey also charges a monthly individual account fee of one dollar. On July 1, 2009, the Maryland Transportation Authority began charging $1.50 a month to accountholders.

The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) in New York City once imposed a monthly account fee starting on July 1, 2005, claiming to defray the administrative costs. However, New York State Assembly Bill A06859A in 2005 and 2006 and Senate Bill S6331 in 2006 both considered such a fee threatening the efficiency to move traffic faster with lower tolls and sought to ban it. When the New York State Law started to ban the monthly account fee, the TBTA repealed it on June 1, 2006, and those, especially New Jerseyans, seeking New York accounts and avoiding the monthly fee still imposed by New Jersey and Port Authority, would have to apply for the TBTA or the New York State Thruway accounts at an E‑ZPass New York Service Center.

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 available only to customers whose tags are issued by the agency that owns the toll facility in question (reciprocity applies to tag acceptance, not to discounts). Seven authorities in the Northeast (Maine, the Massachusetts Turnpike, the New Hampshire Turnpike, Rhode Island, NYC TBTA, New Jersey Turnpike, and DelDOT) restrict their general discounts to their own respective tagholders.

Some agencies charge a one-time fee between $20 and $30 for each new transponder, including the Delaware Department of Transportation, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, and the Maine Turnpike Authority. At least two agencies, the Delaware River and Bay Authority and the Maryland Transportation Authority, are now charging multiple fees. In a press release dated July 17, 2007, the DRBA stated: "Beginning January 1, 2008, all DRBA E-ZPass account holders will be charged an account management fee of $1.50 per month. The transponder cost will also be passed on to E‑ZPass customers for each new transponder." In addition to charging a periodic account fee, the Maryland Transportation Authority is now charging a $21 fee for every transponder it provides. E‑ZPass New York charges a monthly fee of 50 cents for each tag in connection with a business account.

E‑ZPass users are not required to maintain their account with an agency in their home state. Subscribers can open an E‑ZPass account with any member of the IAG regardless of residency. This means that users have the option of choosing an agency based on the fees that it charges, effectively allowing them to circumvent transponder and account maintenance fees.