Pay By Plate MA allows you to use Massachusetts tollways without having a E-ZPass MA transponder (or any transponder), or even an account.
The mechanics: open a Pay By Plate account and your account is charged whenever you go through an open road toll facility. A picture of your license plate is taken as you go through.
Pay by plate makes sense for people who rarerly use the tollway system and or people who are not comfortable with transponder technology.
On the home page of the EZDRiveMA site, this is called "Pay By Plate MA Registered – A license plate based account option."
This is what happens when you drive on a Massachusetts Tollway
without a transponder or an account.
When you do this, the Pay by Plate system sends an invoice to the registered owner of the vehicle based on pictures of your license plate.
Any vehicle that goes through an open road tolling facility without a properly functioning transponder will have an image taken of it's license plate. If the plate is not registered to an account then
an invoice will be sent to the registered owner of the vehicle.
Pay By Plate MA will always be more expensive and less reliable than using the electronic E-ZPass MA device.
The Pay By Plate MA system needs to optically read your license plate, potentially in bad weather, during day or night, license plates may be dirty, and your car may be travelling slow or fast.
But Pay By Plate MA does make sense in some situations.
Appeal a Massachusetts Pay By Plate Charge.
Other Important Forms and Applications.
Notes on terminology:
Pay By Plate MA is the Massachusetts pay by plate system.
E-ZPass MA is the Massachusetts electronic toll system and is part of the E-ZPass system.
EZDriveMA is the name of the Massachusetts toll system. Pay By Plate MA and E-ZPass MA are part of EZDriveMA.