Government seeks to integrate cashless toll system in expressways
MANILA, Philippines — Motorists who lined up for two RFID stickers would soon find themselves only having to reload one as the government works on linking toll systems using two stickers needed to cross two expressways going north and south of Metro Manila.
The good news is that would create a seamless toll system where motorists would only have to load only one wallet to pass through North and South Luzon Expressways. That would take time however, probably over a year and half remaining under the Duterte administration.
“Phase 3 [will be] ultimately one sticker and one wallet,” Abe Sales, executive director of the Toll Regulatory Board, said in a briefing.
The “interoperability” of RFID stickers would be an “ultimate” fix to the long lines that greeted tollways on Tuesday when the government started prohibiting most cash payments in toll roads to lessen human contact and prevent coronavirus contagion.
Currently, different RFID systems are used in NLEx and SLEx because the tollways are operated by different private firms. NLEx, which is under Metro Pacific Investments Corp., uses Easytrip, while San Miguel Corp.’s SLEx uses Autosweep.
RFID or radio frequency identification is essentially a cashless payment system in tollways involving electromagnetic stickers in vehicles automatically read at tollgates for swift passage. In August, the transport department mandated the compulsory use of RFID to lessen human contact in paying cash and prevent coronavirus contagion.
That was supposed to be enforced last Tuesday, but motorists that flocked RFID application sites failed to get their stickers on time, mostly because toll operators failed to anticipate demand and ran out of stickers. As a result, some cash payments had been permitted and government said no apprehensions would be made for doing so until January.
Sought for comment over plans to integrate RFID systems, Transport Assistant Secretary Goddes Hope Libiran said no specific timetable had been set for the project, but that officials would work toward that goal during the rest of the Duterte administration.
“These are two different private companies who have different financial and operational systems, so, understandably, it will take them some time to integrate,” she said in a text message.
The process would also be undertaken step by step. At first, government would try having two wallets in one sticker, that is a motorist with Autosweep sticker, for instance, can open and load an Easytrip account which is already happening. But the vice-versa remained unavailable and still currently being worked out.
Once the point of a one sticker, one wallet system is reached however, another question would be what motorists who bought two RFIDs would do with their two stickers. To this, Libiran only had this to say: “If isang sticker na lang, they can either use their existing Autosweep or Easytrip, since parehas namang mababasa in both toll roads.”
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