I-Pass timelag

[Badger39]

I know when I travel from Illinois to Indiana both the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road toll charges show up on the I-Pass site a day or two later than the Illinois charges.  My question - if I'm close to the autoreplenish amount in Illinois, do I need to manually load an amount a few days ahead of time so I can get through Indiana and other EZ Pass toll roads beyond with no problems?

[SEWIGuy]

What would the problem be if you don't?

[Badger39]

What would the problem be if you don't?

Let's say I start a trip with $15 my account.  By the time I get to the Chicago Skyway I'm below $10 and the account replenishes to $50.  I continue driving and now incur over $10 going through Indiana.  Do the Indiana toll booths think I have $15, $9, or $50 in my account?  The problem is magnified if I continue to the Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, New York Turnpike, and/or New Jersey Turnpike.

The other possibility is that the toll booths don't know my account balances and just submit a bill to Illinois I-Pass.  In that case, I would have the tolls covered.

[abefroman329]

What would the problem be if you don't?

The Skyway and the ITR have barriers at all of the lanes at each toll plaza, and they won't open if your I-Pass has a negative balance.

[ilpt4u]

I don't know if they still do, but ISTHA used to recommend putting additional $$$ in the I-Pass account if you are taking an East Coast Road Trip

I think the delay occurs with any foreign agency - ITR, OTC, PTC, Maryland ICC, NJTP, etc

[SEWIGuy]

What would the problem be if you don't?

The Skyway and the ITR have barriers at all of the lanes at each toll plaza, and they won't open if your I-Pass has a negative balance.

Gotcha. 

[kalvado]

Completely different state, but I ran into red on my NY thruway E-ZPass on Thruway once or twice Nothing special  happened, autoreplenish fired up later in the day, everything went smoothly.

[vdeane]

What would the problem be if you don't?

The Skyway and the ITR have barriers at all of the lanes at each toll plaza, and they won't open if your I-Pass has a negative balance.

Wow.  Around here, it's only an issue if one doesn't have automatic replenishment set up.  If you do, nobody cares.

I'm not sure that places outside of Illinois would know your current balance, but I am certain that they won't know about charges not yet posted to your account - they'll only know about the current account balance.  The real danger would be the window of time between those charges processing and when the credit card gets billed to replenish the account.  E-ZPass doesn't have a uniform system - it's really just a bunch of different tags with (mostly) common branding that are all interoperable with each other and a centralized hub for coordinating everything, so an agency outside of Illinois wouldn't have direct access to your I-Pass account.

[SSOWorld]

I've done east coast road trips many times with the pass - the latest 3 I did not manually load funds, the autoreplenish took in when it went low.  Even with Maryland lagging bad (worse of them all)

[Rothman]

NYSTA autoreplenish means just that:  If you go into the red, it triggers an autoreplenish, no penalty applied.

That said, they will up your autoreplenishment amount due to heavy usage ($20 to $30 or more).

[ET21]

Mine auto-replenishes when I hit $10 in the account left

[Brandon]

Mine auto-replenishes when I hit $10 in the account left

Likewise for me as well.  Then there's goes up by $40 each time so I don't have to worry about it for a bit.

[mvak36]

Mine auto-replenishes when I hit $10 in the account left

Yeah same here for me. I've never had any issues.

The only reason I might go and add money to the account ahead of time is if I know I will be driving on something like those expensive bridges around NYC. I've never driven them but I would guess those are the most expensive tolls you would find on the EZPass system.

[SEWIGuy]

Yeah I guess if you know it would auto replenish anyway, you may as well pre-load. 

[kalvado]

Mine auto-replenishes when I hit $10 in the account left

Yeah same here for me. I've never had any issues.

The only reason I might go and add money to the account ahead of time is if I know I will be driving on something like those expensive bridges around NYC. I've never driven them but I would guess those are the most expensive tolls you would find on the EZPass system.

There is an ezpass plus option to pay for parking, and bills can be significant. I believe I used it once, but for the pretty low charge.
https://www.e-zpassny.com/en/home/plus.shtml

. Parking fees of $20 or greater will be charged directly to the credit card used to replenish your account.

[mvak36]

Mine auto-replenishes when I hit $10 in the account left

Yeah same here for me. I've never had any issues.

The only reason I might go and add money to the account ahead of time is if I know I will be driving on something like those expensive bridges around NYC. I've never driven them but I would guess those are the most expensive tolls you would find on the EZPass system.

There is an ezpass plus option to pay for parking, and bills can be significant. I believe I used it once, but for the pretty low charge.
https://www.e-zpassny.com/en/home/plus.shtml

. Parking fees of $20 or greater will be charged directly to the credit card used to replenish your account.

That's interesting. Not that I would ever use it, but is that option only for NJ and NY EZpass or does it work for transponders from other states?

[J N Winkler]

I have an I-Pass, and in 2017 I took a lengthy road trip that involved travel on the Illinois Tollway (limited, I think, to the I-80/I-294 barrier toll at Hazel Crest), the New York Thruway, and the Ohio Turnpike.  My Tollway account auto-replenished at least once (I have set a $10 threshold and $10 top-up each time) and, AFAIK, never once went into the red.

I will say, however, that I have seen yellow at the blue/yellow lights on the Tollway at times when my account was nowhere near the auto-replenish threshold.  This has never resulted in a video toll, however.  I suspect the equipment is highly reliable but not 100% glitch-free.

[jmacswimmer]

Even with Maryland lagging bad (worse of them all)

This has been a thing ever since MDTA changed vendors and replaced the ezpassmd.com website with driveezmd.com back in April, and it really irks me (maybe I should post about it in "minor things that bother you" ).  In-state MD tolls used to almost always post same day on the old website, but for example my most recent Tydings Bridge crossing took 10 days to post (and currently waiting on 2 Bay Bridge crossings from the past 2 weekends).

I had been curious if the lag also affected out-of-state E-ZPass (or I-Pass, in this case) accounts - hopefully processing times will speed back up at some point.

[NJRoadfan]

The lag certainly does effect out of state tags in MD. Looks like my Bay Bridge crossing in April is free since that never posted.

[SSOWorld]

The lag certainly does effect out of state tags in MD. Looks like my Bay Bridge crossing in April is free since that never posted.

which direction did you go? If you went west it's free.

[FightingIrish]

I don't have an IPass, but I drove on the Tollway from Wisconsin to the Edens, then back later in the day. No gates, no cash on the road - only IPass and plate readers. Upon my return to Milwaukee later in the evening, I set up an account on the Tollway web page and registered my plates and a debit card, to avoid any hassles. The $9 for the round trip was billed and taken out a week later. Pretty simple.

[captkirk_4]

I wonder if I pass works on the Kansas Turnpike, I 70 has a small stretch from Topeka to KC that is a tollroad where you take a card at the gate. I had to get an I pass for that short bit of I 80 in the south suburbs that the used covid as an excuse to get rid of tollbooths.

[CtrlAltDel]

I have an I-Pass, and in 2017 I took a lengthy road trip that involved travel on the Illinois Tollway (limited, I think, to the I-80/I-294 barrier toll at Hazel Crest), the New York Thruway, and the Ohio Turnpike.  My Tollway account auto-replenished at least once (I have set a $10 threshold and $10 top-up each time) and, AFAIK, never once went into the red.

I will say, however, that I have seen yellow at the blue/yellow lights on the Tollway at times when my account was nowhere near the auto-replenish threshold.  This has never resulted in a video toll, however.  I suspect the equipment is highly reliable but not 100% glitch-free.

While this isn't directly applicable to your situation, it seems to me that they changed the duration the various lights are illuminated within the past year. It used to be about a full second, enough at least where I could see the lights from my rear view mirror as I passed by. Now, it's a quarter second at the most, and if you blink, you'll miss it. I wonder if it's now more for the cameras at the booths than anything else.

[mvak36]

I wonder if I pass works on the Kansas Turnpike, I 70 has a small stretch from Topeka to KC that is a tollroad where you take a card at the gate. I had to get an I pass for that short bit of I 80 in the south suburbs that the used covid as an excuse to get rid of tollbooths.

I don't think it does. KTAG/Pikepass/Texas system are interoperable but not I-Pass.

They're also converting to AET over the next few years so those credit card readers at the gates might be gone after that.