Shore trips on the Atlantic City Expressway may speed up with all-electronic tolls by summer 2025

The ride from Philly to the Shore should get more efficient after New Jersey officials complete a transition to all-electronic tolls on the Atlantic City Expressway by the summer of 2025.

State officials held a groundbreaking Monday for the long-anticipated $77 million project that will completely redo the Egg Harbor and Pleasantville toll plazas by replacing them with overhead gantries that read E-ZPass transponders or license plates.

» READ MORE: Driving to the Jersey Shore? What's the best way to get there.

State officials view it as a safety and climate measure that will reduce crashes and pollution.

For most users, the effect could be a faster ride from Camden County to the Shore, as all lanes will open up to electronic, no-stop toll collection.

Motorists without an E-ZPass will get a bill in the mail based on their license plate. About 85% of motorists on the expressway use E-ZPass, according to state officials.

The All Electronic Tolling project will replace the two main barrier plazas and all ramp toll machines with 11 state-of-the-art gantry systems, said Kimberly Testa, a spokesperson with the South Jersey Transportation Authority, providing “an uninterrupted ride from Philadelphia to Atlantic City.”

» READ MORE: New Jersey is moving to tear down toll barriers on all three of its toll roads

But whether all-electronic tolling saves money is difficult to calculate. The Pennsylvania Turnpike pays the vendor TransCore about $10 million a year to run the toll-by-plate system and budgeted $129 million to remove physical toll stations and locate gantries along its 551 miles of road. The turnpike went cashless in 2020, leading to the elimination of 600 toll collector jobs.

The SJTA has also contracted with TransCore, a Nashville-based company, on a $159.3 million, 15-year deal to build and manage the new toll system.

TransCore, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based ST Engineering with offices in Union, N.J., says its Infinity Digital Lane System can “record transactions in high-volume traffic using video capture and recognition technologies, automatic vehicle identification and classification, and digital video audit system.”

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority approved a similar $914 million contract in 2022 with TransCore to install all-electronic tolling on the Garden State Parkway and portions of the turnpike.