This gantry system can read E-ZPass sensors at normal highway speeds, allowing a toll booth to process 600 more cars per hour than the E-ZPass equipped booths across the region for which drivers must slow to at least 5 mph. In North America, high-speed toll readers are currently in use on Highway 407 in Toronto and Delaware's Route 1, where it has been so successful in reducing traffic back-ups that managers plan to retrofit toll plazas on other state highways. 

Before the gantry can be put in at these Port Authority crossings, the concrete barriers that separate lanes must also be taken out. The agency would not remove the medians until E-ZPass users make up between 70-80% of traffic during rush hours. In the interim, E-ZPass users must still slow to a crawl to allow the sensor to deduct their toll. He also suggested that the system is also being considered for the Bayonne and Goethals Bridges if E-ZPass use there increases as expected. The Lincoln and Holland Tunnels would be more difficult to engineer due to the lack of space for merging the high-speed E-ZPass customers and cash-paying drivers.

Using this logic, the MTA should be moving quickly to install non-stop toll gantries at many of its bridges and tunnels where E-ZPass usage has surpassed or is approaching 70% (see chart). In NJ, E-ZPass market share is growing steadily on the Garden State Parkway, the only toll road where it is currently in use. According to a Parkway spokesperson, almost 50% of drivers use E-ZPass at the Hillsdale Plaza, where the authority began its installation last December. This represents a doubling of users since early March, indicating that the Parkway may reach 70% not long after it completes its EZ Pass reader roll-out at the Cape May Plaza in mid-September (MTR #260).