New Jersey estimates that its E-ZPass program will result in a deficit of as much as $65 million by 2008. When the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and its four regional consortium members introduced E-ZPass in 1998, they forecasted a surplus of $35 million by 2008. The excess money was supposed to be generated by leasing excess parts of the E-ZPass fiber-optic network to private communications companies. And, in fact, such leases have generated more than $100 million already.
What's gone fiscally wrong is due, in part, to E-ZPass's popularity. Where estimates were for 35 percent of drivers on the mid-Atlantic consortium's E-ZPass-equipped roads to buy into the program, participation has soared to 53 percent. But the transportation agencies in the consortium--agencies from Delaware, New Jersey and New York--pay a contractor per transaction to run the program, and those costs are higher than the tolls being collected.
Additional money is lost by E-ZPass in other Northeast states as drivers who don't buy the passes scoot through the E-ZPass toll lanes anyway. Such scofflaws have cost Massachusetts about $4 million a year and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey more than $18 million. Massachusetts recently installed video surveillance cameras to stem the losses, and the Port Authority has used collection agents to recover about $1 million in unpaid tolls.
