Pa. Closing Turnpike tollbooths, Open Road Tolling arrives in 2025

Source: John Greim / Getty

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced as they year comes to an end, that they’re putting an end to tollbooths; switching from stop and go tolling to open road tolling starting early in 2025.

Open Road Tolling is the new method that the PA Turnpike will be using as the new year rolls around, with the cashless tolls to be implemented east of Reading starting on Jan. 5, 2025.

“Open Road Tolling (ORT) is the culmination of the PA Turnpike’s decade-long journey to modernize operations on our 565+ miles of roadway,” the turnpike said in a news release. “In the ORT system, tolls are charged electronically as customers drive at highway speeds beneath overhead structures, called gantries, without slowing down or stopping at toll booths. Equipment on the gantry and in the roadway classifies and identifies the vehicle and electronically processes tolls, allowing for free-flowing traffic: which reduces accidents, improves the environment, and allows new access points.”

Alan Williams, Construction Engineering Manager of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, believes that going cashless will limit the accidents that occur at the toll plazas.

“Safety is the biggest driver,” Williams said over the summer of 2024. “Unfortunately we have customers that actually have sideswipe accidents with our toll plazas every day sometimes we have people that sideswipe each other because they’re trying navigate in and out of those toll plaza lanes.”

The turnpike offered some tips for drivers:

E-ZPass customers should properly mount their transponder at all times.
Pre-registered Toll by Plate customers or an E-ZPass customers should keep their vehicles, license plates and credit card information up-to-date on their accounts.
Open an E-ZPass account to take advantage of the most cost-effective way to travel on the PA Turnpike.

A 5% toll increase also goes into effect next year.

The new ORT shouldn’t impact E-ZPass users too much, the turnpike said: “Due to changes in rate structure and vehicle classification, 84% of E-ZPass trips will see a toll decrease or an increase of less than $1 in 2025 compared to 2024 rates.”