Pennsylvania Turnpike to switch to ‘open road’ toll system east of Reading in January

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania Turnpike is getting ready to move to an " open road tolling " system, which means no more paying cash at the toll plazas.

Those overhead structures you may have seen spanning the lanes of the Turnpike between interchanges are called gantries. They support sensors that will read your license plate or EZPass for tolling.

Starting Jan. 5, tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike east of Reading and on the Northeast Extension will be charged by how many of those gantries you drive under on the main line of the highway, and not where you get on or off.

"There's a gantry between each interchange. So no matter when you get on, you're going to pass under a gantry," explained engineering manager Alan Williamson.

The way tolls are determined will change. Instead of how much a vehicle weighs, digital sensors will detect how big it is and how many axles it has.

"It's a different way of calculating the size of the vehicle to try to appropriately assign the toll," said Turnpike COO Craig Shuey.

He says a typical car will pay seven cents a mile plus $1.09 for each gantry it passes. "The Pennsylvania Turnpike is the last agency in the nation using weight as a basis for tolling," Shuey added.

"What's going to change here is really not much. The transaction point is what's being relocated," said Williamson. Officials say the old toll plazas east of Reading will be demolished.

Open road tolling won't go into effect west of Reading until 2027.