The Pennsylvania Turnpike is raising toll rates for the 17th consecutive year with a 5% increase that begins today.
But there’s more than just the rate that is changing this year. The method of collecting tolls without using toll plazas will begin east of Reading and on the Northeast Extension – resulting in nearly half of motorists paying lower fees – and the way payments are calculated for commercial vehicles will change to conform with all other states.
“This is a long-term play,” CEO Mark Compton said of the change from using toll booths at exits to charge drivers based on how many exits they passed on the highway to a system called open road tolling, where the charge is based on miles driven.
“It’s part of a process to add value to the customer experience.”
Open road tolling
It’s not a surprise that tolls will increase 5% beginning today. Mostly because of a 14-year requirement to pay the state Department of Transportation $400 million a year to support public transit that ended in 2023, the agency accumulated more than $15 billion in long-term debt and has projected toll increases through 2050.
Chief Financial Officer Richard Dreher said the agency remains on track to reduce the increase to 3% beginning in 2028. If necessary, administrators can adjust the annual operating budget – it has increased 2% a year or less for more than 10 years – to deal with any unexpected revenue shortfalls.
The change to open road tolling will help control those administrative costs by eliminating the need for toll booths. Using overhead gantries that read E-ZPass transponders or photograph license plates and send drivers a bill in the mail is expected to save about $25 million a year when the system is fully operation in 2027.
The agency switched to all-electronic tolling and eliminated about 550 toll collectors in spring 2020 to reduce human interaction near the start of the pandemic. But the charges were still calculated electronically at toll booths.
Today, the turnpike begins the new process of charging drivers for miles driven when they pass under overhead gantries. The agency has been testing 19 gantries for about six months – 10 on the mainline east of Reading and nine on the Northeast Extension. Ten more are under construction in the central part of the state.
Motorists in Western Pennsylvania may be familiar with the system because it already is used near the Ohio border, near Cranberry and on the Southern Beltway near Pittsburgh International Airport that opened in 2020.
“I’d like to think we’re ready,” Compton said. “We’ve been monitoring them for about six months, and they’re ready to go.”
Allison Park Contractors Inc. is expected to begin construction early this year on 11 gantries that will be installed between the Ohio border and the Fort Littleton interchange in Fulton County, just east of Bedford. Those should begin operation in January 2027.
After years of study, the agency settled on rates that charge E-ZPass users 7 cents per mile driven plus $1.09 for each gantry or toll plaza a vehicle passes, double that rate for Toll-By-Plate users.
Because of the new collection system, the cost for individual customers will be different based on where and how far they drive. In some areas, drivers can get a free ride if they only go from one interchange to another where there is no gantry to record their trip.
Overall, the agency estimates that about half of drivers will pay a lower toll. For those who do pay increases, about 84% of E-ZPass users and 74% of Toll-By-Plate customers will pay less than $1 more under the new rates based on historical data of the most common trips.
In the Pittsburgh area, car trips between the Allegheny Valley and Monroeville interchanges and between Monroeville and Irwin will decrease by 18 cents for each trip with E-ZPass. For Toll-By-Plate, the cost from Allegheny Valley will be $1.26 lower and from Monroeville $1.12 lower.
The agency charges higher rates for drivers without E-ZPass to cover the administrative charges of processing photos, sending bills through the mail and tracking payments.
Even with the increase, Dreher said the turnpike remains about the middle of the pack for rates charged by 47 tolling agencies across the country.
Drivers can expect the charges in their turnpike accounts to look different as a result of the new system. It will stay the same if they only drive in the western part of the state, but drivers using the new gantry system will see more details about how their charges were calculated.
The agency believes open road tolling will have a series of benefits, beginning with free-flowing traffic because vehicles won’t have to stop or slow down to pay tolls. That is expected to reduce crashes that involve rear-end collisions and cut air pollution waiting in stalled traffic.
The turnpike will begin later this year eliminating the collection buildings at interchanges where gantries have been installed. That will have the double benefit of reducing the amount of land the agency needs at interchanges and allow it to convert them to diamond interchanges that exist on most interstate highways and allow entry and exit without stopping or slowing down.
Additionally, not needing large plazas will allow the turnpike to create more entry and exit points such as the one scheduled for Route 130 in Penn Township, Westmoreland County, in the mid 2030s.
Commercial rate change
After decades of charging rates for commercial vehicles based on their weight, the state will change to a system that issues charges based on a vehicle’s height and length, which is the system used by all other states. The overhead gantries will have sensors that determine a vehicle’s size – known as automatic vehicle classification — and the appropriate charge.
Compton said, “This is something [the trucking industry] has been asking for,” because it makes drivers’ costs more predictable. The charges will be the same whether the truck is full or empty.
The AVC uses 11 commercial classifications instead of nine used previously. The turnpike said it expects about 70% of commercial drivers – who are the biggest revenue generators for the agency – will see increases of $5 or less under the new calculations.
In the middle of last year, the turnpike commission scaled back its capital project over the next 10 years after it received a consultant’s report that projected flat growth in traffic in the next few years. Some projects not related to safety that had been expected in the next few years were moved back to the next decade because of revenue concerns.
But Dreher said he’s been pleased that the agency’s been exceeding those projections.
For example, revenue collections through November are up 3% over projections, 6.5% net over the previous year. Traffic volume is up 0.7% overall, 1.7% in commercial.
The 10-year capital plan is adjusted every year and projects could be moved up again if additional revenue is available, Dreher said.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.