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Open road tolling means non-stop travel for E-ZPass customers.

The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission’s new toll collection system (TCS), which started as a vision and study in 2016, is now nearing the final phases of completion.

More than 20 construction projects – including four new and reconstructed mainline toll plazas – are required to modernize the TCS, which will create open road tolling lanes for E-ZPass customers to travel non-stop across the entire state at highway speed (70 mph). The design also allows E-ZPass customers to travel non-stop at low speeds (10 mph) in designated lanes at all remaining toll plaza interchanges.

Most travelers on the Ohio Turnpike – designated as I-90, I-80, and I-76 across the 241-mile toll road – are already seeing a glimpse of the new TCS. The transition to the new system will be seamless for our customers. In fact, since the major construction projects began in 2019, our passenger car and commercial truck customers have continued to make nearly 50 million trips, on average, per year.

The TCS modernization plan includes a reduction in the number of toll plazas from 31 to 24. In addition to the new four mainline toll plazas, the lanes at 20 toll plaza interchanges are being upgraded with new electronic tolling equipment. The gates from all toll plaza entrance lanes and E-ZPass-only exit lanes will remain in the upright position.

Automatic Toll Payment Machines (ATPMs), which accept cash, coins and credit cards, will be available at all 20 toll plaza interchanges as well as the four mainline toll plazas when the TCS is completed.

New cameras to capture license plate images are being installed to catch toll violators. Toll lane gates will remain in exit lanes to accommodate customers paying their tolls by cash or credit card.

Other TCS projects include the installation of automatic traffic recorders, which is a camera system to count and determine vehicles by class; and weigh-in motion systems, which include pavement sensors to weigh trucks as they are driving at highway speeds and to detect overweight vehicles.

The new TCS system and the technology behind it are a big step forward in safety, efficiency and convenience for the Ohio Turnpike’s passenger car and commercial truck customers to reach east and west destinations along the northern corridor of Ohio and beyond.