BEREA, Ohio The Ohio Turnpike joins the E-ZPass highway tolling system this month, enabling coach operator members of the network to drive from Maine to west beyond Chicago and pay all tolls electronically.

With Ohio in the network, that covers toll roads in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, much of the eastern half of the U.S. is now linked by a single highway tolling system.

The Oct. 1 hookup by Ohio will allow vehicles equipped with E-ZPass transponders to travel uninterrupted through the 14-state tolling system, the largest in the United States.

The network extends from Maine in the Northeast to Virginia in the South to Illinois in the West. Until Ohio joined E-ZPass, the Buckeye state created a major gap in the system.

A total of 25 tolling agencies and 18.6 million vehicles use the E-ZPass system, which is operated by the E-ZPass Interagency Group. It cost $50 million to implement the system on the 241-mile turnpike across northern Ohio.

The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which represents tolling agencies, predicts that a nationwide electronic system serving all toll roads, tunnels and bridges could be a reality within 10 years.

Existing technology would make it possible, but a major obstacle is forging agreements among tolling agencies to make sure toll revenue is distributed properly across state borders.

More than 95 percent of the nation's tolling agencies are served by E-ZPass or TransCore, which supplies technology for electronic tolling systems in Georgia, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington.

Technology exists to provide compatibility between TransCore systems such as TxTag in Texas and SunPass in Florida and E-ZPass. But the systems are unable to process each others transactions because there are no agreements yet among tolling agencies.

North Carolina, which broke ground last month on its first modern toll road - the 18.8-mile Triangle Expressway in the Raleigh-Durham area - hasn't decided whether to use E-ZPass, TransCore or something else.

The Ohio Turnpike, which carries about 150,000 vehicles daily, is adding an incentive to encourage vehicles to use E-ZPass. Drivers wont see any rate hikes if they use E-ZPass. But rates for drivers who pay cash will jump 40 percent.

Despite the prevalence of toll roads in some parts of the country, 20 states, mostly in the West, currently have no toll roads or bridges.