Mainers Can Soon Pay for Gas With Their E-ZPass, but is It Convenient?

Automatic toll collection has been a thing in Maine since 1997 with the launch of Transpass, a bulky box you mounted to the top of your dashboard that would be detected when you went through the tollbooth.

In 2005, the Turnpike switched to E-ZPass, which many drivers in Maine have in their cars to pay their tolls on the Maine Turnpike and in 18 other states.

Now E-ZPass is getting a new feature in Maine that might change how you fill up at the pump. But is it convenient?

According to MaineBiz, the company behind E-ZPass is bringing a mobile pay service that was successful from Massachusetts to Maine. Now, not only will you be able to pay your tolls with E-ZPass, but also pay for gas via text. Wait, what?

I'm puzzled. When I pay for gas, all I have to do is wave my smartphone in front of the pump and I'm done. It takes two seconds. Sending a text to pay for your gas seems like more of a nuisance than a convenience.

Maybe I'm in the minority here as a person who uses their phone to wave in front of the gas pumps, but I figure that if you have to use your phone to text in the first place, you might as well add a pay service app to your phone like Google Pay, Samsung Pay, or any of the dozens of pay apps out there.

If the E-ZPass text to pay for gas sounds good for you, here's how it works:

You install the PayByCar app (which connects to E-ZPass), and it recognizes you when pull up to the pump. E-ZPass does not bill you, but payment is taken out of whatever payment account you set up after you installed the app. You then get a text to pump the gas, and when you're done, you get another text that confirms it.

This new service from E-ZPass should be here within the next two years.