EZ PASS for out of state visitor?

I may remember incorrectly, but I thought Federal legislation is requiring all the toll system passes, EZ Pass & Sun Pass for instance, must be made to talk to and be compatible with each other. And I'm thinking the year is 2016 for the conversion to be complete.

JimFromJersey wrote:
Also, EZ-Pass, though good through much of the East Coast, is STATE dependent in terms of fees, etc. I live in NJ, and have to pay a monthly fee. I tried going over the DMB to Delaware to sign up for the DE version of EZ-Pass, and I could not, since I live in NJ. Odd. Things may have changed since then, but overall, EZ-Pass is state-centric for many things.

That is humorous, as I live in Connecticut but New Jersey was perfectly happy to take my money for an EZPass! We travel up and down I95 in New England which is why I bought the pass - actually thinking of buying another one.

I am surprised that all the EZPass-type systems are not compatible. After all these years I assumed they would be.

Connecticut keeps talking about some sort of Pass system, most likely EZPass. I am surprised it is taking this long to implement it - not very often politicians delay in taking your money!

We have a De EZ Pass as most anything related to Gov in MD sucks. They happily take our money from out of state and have some of the best customer service I've encountered.

At least in Illinois, the IPass rate us half the cash rate. Quickly pays for the $10 transponder cost.

accsys wrote:
I would suggest you open an I-Pass account in Illinois. This can be done over the internet and they will send the transponder to you. It's good anywhere EZ-Pass is accepted. The advantage of the I-Pass over other state's EZ-Pass accounts is there is no monthly maintenance fee like most of the other states charge. We purchased an EZ-Pass in MD a few years ago and it didn't take long for the maintenance fees to eat up our balance when we were traveling in other parts of the country. We purchased an I-Pass last year and is still has the balance left it in when we left the area, waiting on us to travel to another EZ-Pass state for use.

As Canadians, we were able to buy our EZ-Pass online through the New York Thruway system. There are no maintenance fees for EZ-Pass in New York State; we just have to keep a small balance in our account which they take automatically (when it's needed) from our US Dollar MasterCard. It's so great not having to fumble around for coins, and they don't take too kindly to our "different" Canadian coins if we run out of US ones.:)

We also gave a SunPass. We have family in the Orladio area and just spent a week there. The SunPass was very handy. There are alternative routes to the toll roads but the roads are so congested, we now just pay the tolls.

We also have the IPASS from IL. We do not use it often but it sure saves us from waiting in line and carrying around a bucket of change. The IPASS has no service fee and it can be transferred from vehicle to vehicle. We will use it on a rental car next month when we visit family in MA. We will just go online to our account and add the rental car. We are towing a 5th wheel and only need one transponder. Has worked in every state where we have encountered EZPASS tolls. We applied for ours by mail because we could not find one anywhere in Central IL or IN. We are fulltimers and residents of SD.

Thanks for the info everyone!

Also, EZ-Pass, though good through much of the East Coast, is STATE dependent in terms of fees, etc. I live in NJ, and have to pay a monthly fee. I tried going over the DMB to Delaware to sign up for the DE version of EZ-Pass, and I could not, since I live in NJ. Odd. Things may have changed since then, but overall, EZ-Pass is state-centric for many things.

bandit86 wrote:
What passes do I need going from Michigan to and in Louisiana?

I believe you don't need any. It should be fairly easily possible to find decent routes without tolls, and the toll roads you're at all likely to encounter accept cash. (The only exception I can think of are some roads in and around Chicago should you, for some bizarre hedonistic reason, think it fun to unnecessarily drive through that area. They do have some exits and entrances that are not set up for cash payments. I don't remember the exact roads I saw that on.)

EZPass covers Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Illinois calls their version I-Pass, but it's still part of the same system.