Three hours before the state will activate the all-electronic tolling system Friday night, the customer service call center will go offline.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced this week that the E-ZPass MA customer service call center will be unavailable starting at 6:45 p.m. on Friday. The outage will last until Tuesday at 7 a.m., and is needed to update and activate the new EZDriveMA system, according to the department.
Meanwhile, manual toll collection is scheduled to end three hours later, at 9:45 p.m., and the existing E-ZPass MA system will stop processing transactions at existing toll plazas. The new system officially begins at 10 p.m.
Two days later, on Sunday, demolition of toll booths is expected to begin. MassDOT expects to have new traffic patterns in place near toll booths using message boards, traffic cones and police details. Contractors will knock down the booths, fill in tunnels connecting the booths and pave the highway. All toll booths should be completed by Nov. 22, MassDOT said.
Existing tolling websites, www.ezpassma.com and www.paybyplatema.com, will be shut down, and the new EZDriveMA website will be available for informational purposes only. Online services on the new site will begin on Nov. 1.
A spokesperson for MassDOT said Thursday the department has had “a huge spike in activity” and was processing a lot of E-ZPass applications.
In a three-month period, the department has distributed about 167,000 transponders. In the same time period last year, the department distributed about 45,000. The system is capacity, causing some people difficulty applying for transponders, the spokesperson said.
Transponders will be available after the system goes live.
There will be a six-month grace period in which motorists can get the pay-by-plate cost refunded by calling the customer service line to get a transponder and pay the entirety of the bill. Motorists will then be credited the difference.
Eight locations will be open for in-person assistance during the outage. More information on these locations can be found on the MassDOT Blog.
Transponders are still available at AAA locations as well as the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Under the new all-electronic tolling system, 24 toll plazas along the 138-mile highway from Boston to the New York border will be replaced by 16 gantries that arch over the highway and electronically charge vehicles with E-ZPass transponders without requiring them to stop or slow down.
Drivers without transponders will be billed by mail — cameras in the gantries will snap a photo of their license plates — and will pay a higher rate than drivers with transponders.