TRB: All toll exits go cashless by June

MANILA, Philippines — The Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) wants to include all toll plazas under the dry run for cashless transactions by June, as it banks on the program to speed up the flow of traffic in expressways.

All toll exits will be testing their systems for cashless payments by the middle of the year, TRB executive director Alvin Carullo told reporters.

Right now, Carullo said the Manila-Cavite Expressway is facing the most issues in the cashless migration, but it eyes to start participating in the dry run by March.

Likewise, 19 toll plazas located in expressways operated by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) will be included in the program as soon as they hurdle the TRB’s acceptance test, Carullo noted.

Carullo said the TRB is pushing for a shift to cashless payments to minimize traffic buildups in toll plazas. In the end, the objective is to make the two Radio Frequency Identification or RFIDs — Easytrip and Autosweep — readable across expressways for ease of passage.

The TRB will be initiating a dry run for the interoperability of the two RFIDs on Jan. 10, as the agency targets to implement the program in July.

By then, motorists can go through any expressway with just one RFID, making it easier for them to maintain and monitor their load balance.

At present, Easytrip is used to traverse expressways managed by the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. while Autosweep is required to cross tollways operated by SMC.

Last year the TRB mandated toll road operators to commence a dry run of contactless payments on select exits. Since then, the agency has expanded the coverage of the program by adding more toll plazas to evaluate the feasibility of the RFID system.

RFID provider Easytrip Services Corp. expects that the shift to cashless transactions will allow it to reach four million users by 2024. Easytrip ended 2023 with a customer base of 3.3 million.

Both Easytrip and Autosweep gained from the digital transition during the pandemic, as Filipinos adopted online platforms in completing their transactions.

Apart from this, Easytrip anticipates fresh registrations for RFID in 2024, as Filipinos are buying private cars in the pandemic aftermath as shown in the 24 percent spike in vehicle sales between January and November 2023.