Fans of the hit TV show The Sopranos might be familiar with the opening sequence where Tony Soprano, chomping on a cigar, rolls down the window of his car to get a ticket to enter the New Jersey Turnpike. Until last September, slowing down to get a ticket was something the 600,000 motorists who use the turnpike daily had to do to drive on it. It was a time-consuming and cumbersome process. Once drivers exited the turnpike they had to stop and pay cash to a tollbooth collector, which resulted in long tailbacks and delays at the tollbooths, especially during rush hour.

All that changed with the introduction of E-Z Pass on the New Jersey Turnpike. E-Z Pass is an electronic toll-collection system that has been in use around the New York metropolitan area for several years. I wrote about E-Z Pass almost four years ago in one of my first columns for Wired on Friday.

At that time E-Z Pass was only used on bridges and tunnels where there was a flat charge for using the facility. What makes the New Jersey Turnpike different is that it is a toll road where motorists pay different amounts depending on the distance travelled. The E-Z Pass system knows where someone entered the turnpike and where he exited, and it charges his prepaid account the correct toll.

Now 16 toll facilities in six states have implemented E-Z Pass. The New York agencies implemented it well ahead of New Jersey and the E-Z Pass system is compatible with other toll roads, bridges and tunnels in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which administers the turnpike, belongs to the Regional Consortium, a group of five north-east toll authorities that created and financed the $600 million (#698 million) plan to bring E-Z Pass to motorists on toll roads throughout New Jersey and Delaware. Ultimately, the regional consortium expects to implement the world's largest electronic toll-collection network, bringing E-Z Pass to more than 700 toll lanes along 415 miles of roads, tunnels and bridges in the north-eastern part of the United States.

As of June 7th, the regional consortium had opened 690,360 E-Z Pass accounts and issued 1.28 trillion E-Z Pass transponders, says Lynn Fleeger, director of public affairs at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. A person can get up to four transponders per account for several members in a family or for multiple cars. The transponder is a little white box that attaches to the inside windshield of a car. As a motorist drives through an E-Z Pass tollbooth, radio frequency connects the transponder to a computer in the tollbooth. This computer is connected by fibre optic cable to a data centre in Secaucus, New Jersey, that is run by Chase Manhattan Bank and has the customer's account information. Authorisation of a transaction takes no more than one-quarter of a second.

Since E-Z Pass came to the New Jersey Turnpike, which is one of the busiest roads in the US, it has penetrated 53 per cent of the market. Take-up "has been phenomenal", Ms Fleeger says. "Right from the beginning, queuing virtually disappeared." She expects market penetration to reach 70 per cent to 75 per cent within three years.

Introduction of E-Z Pass on the turnpike has meant the elimination of 250 toll-collector positions, mainly through attrition.

"A good toll collector can handle 250 vehicles per hour. E-Z Pass can process 1,100 vehicles per hour," Ms Fleeger says. The EZ Pass lanes are specially marked with the distinctive purple E-Z Pass logos and equipped exclusively for E-Z Pass.

Manual toll collecting will continue to exist along with E-Z Pass in other lanes, since 35 per cent of the turnpike's traffic comes from outside the state and there are still those reluctant to sign up for it as they view the system as an invasion of their privacy.

It is so accurate that some commuters fear E-Z Pass will eventually be used to issue automatic speeding tickets, since the authorities would know the time they entered the turnpike and the time they exited, and so could calculate their average speed based on the distance travelled.

Potential E-Z Pass customers can sign up for the service by calling a toll-free telephone number, by registering on the Internet at www.ezpass.com (which receives 50 per cent of applications), by visiting a walkin customer service centre or by applying through the mail. E-Z Pass also has its own global vans that travel to major company sites. There, throughout the day, employees can sign up for E-Z Pass and get their tags instantly activated.

"We're travelling to people to make it convenient for them to sign up," Ms Fleeger says. The vans also have a presence at major sporting events, such as at the New York Giants or Jets games.

In the event of an electricity blackout, the system has an uninterrupted power supply that can last up to two hours. Thereafter, back-up diesel generators kick in.

"Are we having problems?" Ms Fleeger asks. "Sure, it's a very complex system that we're implementing." Someone can still zip through an E-Z Pass lane without having an E-Z Pass tag. However, Ms Fleeger says, the camera installed at each tollbooth takes a picture of the licence plate, which is then run off against the Department of Motor Vehicles list of licences and a photo image of the violator is sent to the centre in Secaucus. The violator is hit with a $25 fee and the appropriate toll.

Yet, despite these hiccups, she adds, "we have so far exceeded our expectations as of day one".