illions of motorists in the Northeast have discovered the convenience of E-ZPass, which lets them move quickly through toll stations as electronic readers automatically deduct their fees. The system has become so popular that the consortium of states that operates the technology has increased its projections for its use to 53 percent of vehicles, from 35 percent.

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Now, this technology is helping people zip through the rest of their lives with equal ease. Call it the new mobile commerce.

From gas stations to grocery stores to fast-food chains, merchants are experimenting with payment systems for a harried marketplace. Using radio frequency identification — or RFID — the systems automatically identify customers, who have set up credit or debit accounts with the issuer, and charge them for their purchases.

The RFID payment systems are similar in some ways to stored-value cards and the programmable "smart cards" used by Starbucks and a growing number of merchants. Those cards automatically deduct money for purchases from prepaid accounts or charge them to a personal account.

But RFID systems are much faster than other types of payment. There is no fumbling through a wallet, no punching in personal identification numbers, no signatures — and, most certainly, no Web browsing. All that is needed is a tiny device called a transponder that might hang on a customer's key chain and is waved in front of an electronic reader like a magic wand.

"Mobile commerce" once conjured up visions of the masses buying movie tickets and all sorts of merchandise on the go from their cellphones. But that vision, like so many overblown Internet expectations, never quite materialized. The high-speed wireless technology needed for such transactions has been slow to reach the market, mainly because it is so expensive. Cellphones, with their tiny keypads, have proved too cumbersome for much more than talking.

By contrast, RFID technology is about speed and ease of use. "There's a lot of technology in the marketplace, but this is customer-focused and simplifies peoples' lives," said Charles Clayton, programs manager for the Speedpass payment system at Exxon Mobil.

 
SPEEDPASS, which lets customers pay for gasoline and convenience-store products at Exxon and Mobil service stations, has become a benchmark in the industry as well as a potential business for Exxon Mobil. Experiments are under way, for example, to let Speedpass customers buy food from McDonald's.

The system is programmed to know which account to charge and whether the customer prefers a receipt. In the future, Speedpass may be programmed to know that a customer doesn't want pickles on that Quarter Pounder.

More than 5.5 million people nationwide have signed up for Speedpass since it was introduced in 1997, and it can be used at 7,500 of the 16,000 Exxon and Mobil locations, said Jeanne Miller, an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman. She said the company is "adding new locations continually."

The Phillips 66 unit of Phillips Petroleum is testing a similar system, as is Shell Canada. Taco Bell and KFC, both units of Tricon Global Restaurants, are trying RFID payment at some sites to make their fast food faster.

Dozens of other companies are planning tests. In fact, the technology has set off a competitive chain reaction: once Exxon Mobil started offering Speedpass, Shell and Phillips quickly followed suit with their own trials, though Shell quietly ended its RFID trial in the United States this year.

RFID technology originated in the 1940's, when it was used by the United States government to identify aircraft as friend or foe. Simpler systems were developed for identifying and tracking livestock and other goods in transit. Wal-Mart Stores, for example, has used RFID technology to keep track of goods moving through its chain of suppliers and warehouses. But only recently have leaders in RFID technology, like Texas Instruments, adapted it for merchandise payment. Texas Instruments sells the transponder for Speedpass and other systems.

If these systems are a step forward in convenience, they are also a giant leap for marketers, who hope to better track consumer purchases.

On one level, the recent history of payment systems has been a struggle to forge customer relationships, with branded credit cards, loyalty programs in which purchases earn points, and smart cards that identify customers and collect information on their buying behavior.

Companies are betting that the convenience of RFID technology will not only keep customers coming back but that it will also lead to more personalized marketing pitches.

"Most merchants recognize this as a marketing tool, a platform to promote the brand," said Andrew Richardson, a manager for international wireless commerce at the RFID Systems unit of Texas Instruments.

The benefits to merchants are many. They can collect data that are untrackable through cash purchases and, by moving customers through more quickly, save on labor costs. RFID technology is less costly to merchants than credit card purchases, for which merchants must pay a percentage to the card processor. Speedpass generally charges a licensing fee but not a percentage of each purchase.

The Speedpass project at Exxon Mobil grew out of a 1993 Mobil study that aimed to identify key customers and surveyed them about what drives loyalty and additional spending. The answers, Mobil concluded, could be summed up in what it called "speed, smiles and strokes" — or convenience, friendly service and recognition for the best customers.

Joseph Giordano, a marketing executive at Mobil, which had not yet been acquired by Exxon, was in charge of the "speed" group. "We wanted to create the simplest and fastest buying experience in the world," said Mr. Giordano, now vice president for business and product development of Speedpass. He said Speedpass was conceived as a sort of cross between electronic toll collection systems and Hertz's Gold program, which keeps regular customers' accounts on file to speed car rentals and returns.

Introduced by Mobil in 1997 and rolled out to Exxon stations last year, Speedpass has been deemed a success by the company. It says Speedpass customers tend to make an additional visit a month, which translates into a 20 percent increase in their spending. Although the use of Speedpass in convenience stores is still fairly low, the average sale tends to be larger than those by cash or credit card. A typical cash transaction is $3 to $3.50, on average, while credit card sales tend to be 60 percent higher. The average Speedpass transaction is more than double the cash amount, Mr. Clayton said.

 
At McDonald's, which is testing Speedpass at 400 outlets in the Chicago area, the program has been "well received," said Lisa Howard, a spokeswoman.

Buoyed by the results, McDonald's is conducting two other tests of RFID payment systems. One, at 32 outlets in Boise, Idaho, uses RFID technology by FreedomPay of Wayne, Pa. Another, in conjunction with E-ZPass, lets customers in Port Jefferson on Long Island use their E-ZPass toll transponders to pay for burgers and fries at the drive-through window.

Rob Munin, vice president for sales and marketing at FreedomPay, said his company's system had accelerated transaction time at McDonald's by 35 percent.

Speedpass has been so successful, Exxon Mobil said, that it is growing into a separate business whose charter is to be a universal payment system like Visa or MasterCard, with Exxon Mobil as just one client. In addition to McDonald's, Mr. Giordano said he was talking to potential partners including a major pharmacy chain and grocery chain, which he declined to identify.

"We want to be big," Mr. Giordano added. How big? "Thirty million customers is not a bad number," he said.