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HOOKSETT, N.H. – With phone lines and a Web site swamped, hundreds of drivers trying to buy E-ZPass transponders waited for up to three hours to buy them in person. “The system is completely overwhelmed,” Jerry Vincent, manager of the E-ZPass Service Center at the Hooksett tolls, said Tuesday. “The response to this is just ridiculous.”
The automated toll-collection system began operating at 5 a.m. Tuesday at the Hooksett and Bedford tolls. It will be phased in elsewhere around the state in coming weeks.
Part of the demand is that the bargain price for transponders – $5 – ends this week, after which the price will rise to about $30.
The state encourages people to buy transponders online – at www.ezpassnh.com – but some of the people who waited in line Tuesday said they had tried but couldn’t get the transaction to go through.
“That’s why we came here,” said Frances Anderson of Wolfeboro, who was waiting with her husband, Bud. “We tried the phone, we tried the computer – nothing worked.”
The telephone number is (877) NHEZPAS.
At the toll booths themselves, the system worked fairly smoothly, though some drivers got confused.
Beth Walker, supervisor of the Hooksett tolls, said some drivers landed in the wrong lanes, but that always happens, as when drivers enter an exact-change lane without the exact change.
“It’s actually been running a lot more smoothly than I expected,” Walker said.
“Our immediate goal was to make sure it was up and running and working effectively, and so far there seems to be no major problems,” said Bill Boynton, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
Boynton said that as of last week, almost 34,000 people had opened E-ZPass accounts and about 64,000 transponders had been sold.
The proportion of drivers using the system Monday was small but encouraging, Boynton said.
He said the department recently ordered another 84,000 transponders, which will be sold for $5 until Saturday. After that the price jumps to around $30.
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