Year-Ender
On land, the lockdown grounded over 2 million commuters, leaving the country with prospects of a P520 Billion loss per annum if mass transport continues to operate at limited capacity.
Thankfully, road infrastructure projects resumed as soon as quarantine restrictions eased.
San Miguel Corporation (SMC) lined up P122-billion projects to be completed by 2025 while Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) pledged to finish P28 billion "stimulus projects" to aid economic recovery.
However, the pandemic changed the scenario drastically by forcing the land transport sector to go digital at last.
To lessen human contact and curb the spread of the virus, transport authorities enforced cashless transactions.
On December 1, the first day of the Department of Transportation (DOTr)-mandated implementation of fully cashless transactions, SMC reported no major traffic gridlocks at its expressways, from South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR), Skyway, NAIA Expressway to the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX).
However, glitches can't be helped, the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) itself conceded.
And when traffic became congested at the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian suspended the business permit of operator NLEX Corp.
By mid-December, it was back to cash for NLEX Corporation in Valenzuela City toll plazas.
Lawmakers also signed Senate Resolution 596 calling for the temporary halt to cashless transactions in all expressways and seeking to amend the DOTr's rule “to improve the implementation of cashless or contactless transactions on all limited access facilities.”
Expecting more traffic surge over the Christmas holidays, NLEX Corporation re-opened cash lanes in all toll plazas of its expressway network.
The operator also presented solutions to improve local traffic conditions in Valenzuela City to Mayor Gatchalian.
These included reducing toll plaza congestion, managing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sticker issues and responding to motorist reloading requests.
Among the immediate operational traffic solutions agreed on include the transfer of RFID sticker installation and account reloading transactions away from the toll gates.
For current RFID customers, NLEX committed to add new RFID toll lanes in both Karuhatan and Mindanao toll plazas.
This will allow existing current RFID users to have better access to the RFID lanes and improve their travel time.
To service other motorists still needing RFID stickers, the installation site at Karuhatan toll plaza will be relocated to the Santolan overpass area inside the expressway.
Meanwhile, the installation site in Mindanao toll plaza will also be relocated about 500 meters inside the expressway near the Que Grande overpass area.
Motorists' requests for accounts reloading will be entertained after the toll gates and will be transacted after entry.
Both local government and toll operator agreed that these will minimize the bottlenecks at the Karuhatan and Mindanao toll gates and achieve a more efficient use of the limited road space specially during rush hours.
The traffic solutions addressed most of the concerns which the City Government raised .
Significantly, despite the glitches, by mid-December, over ninety per cent of transactions in the country’s toll roads have shiftef to RFID stickers, according to TRB data.
Based on the AutoSweep and Easytrip daily reports, as of December 8, 2020, more than 3.7 million RFID stickers have been installed, compared to 1.4 million when the program started, announced TRB Executive Director (ED) Engr. Abraham Sales.
The improvement in penetration rate since December 1, 2020 showed that majority of motorists are now using cashless transactions in passing through tollways.
“The 80-90% of cashless transactions means almost 100% of motorists passing through the tollways are now using RFID,” he confirmed.
The TRB chief also noted that the number of motorists queuing daily for RFID installation is decreasing, from over 34,000 on December 1 to less than 28,000 on December 8, 2020.
The latest report given to TRB was 27,906 installations on December 8, which implies most expressway users already have RFIDs.
By year-end SMC targets to operate156 Radio Frequence Identification (RFID) installation stations on its toll roads.
More RFID stations means more motorists can easily migrate to the government-mandated electronic toll collection system.
SMC opened 42 new stations in the last two weeks, in addition to the 53 stations it had as of November, bringing the current total to 95 stations.
“We’re on track to deliver on our promise to open 100 additional RFID stations," confirmed SMC president and chief operating officer Ramon S. Ang.
"In fact, it will be a little more than that. Our bulk orders of RFID tags from abroad have been arriving as scheduled, so we’ve also been able to open more stations—42 new ones as of last count. An additional 61 outlets, mostly off-site, are in process and we will open all of these by end of December,” he added.
Todate, most of the active stations are located at STAR, SLEX, Skyway, NAIAx, and TPLEX, with others located at gas stations, customer service centers, and transport terminals.
However, all of the 61 remaining outlets to be opened will be located outside the expressways to provide convenience to more motorists, especially non-frequent users of SMC’s expressways, Ang explained.
These include new installation stations at more gas stations, transport terminals, malls, home builder complexes, local government offices, Land Transportation Office (LTO) facilities, churches and major arenas.
These are on top of its Autosweep RFID caravan program, where wing vans will be deployed to barangays and villages to conduct stickering activities.
However, cashless toll payment, or “full Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the expressways, after whatever refinement will be mandated, is just the first stage”, according to Rodrigo E. Franco, president and CEO of the Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC).
The final stage is the vision of the ‘open road’ with neither barriers nor tollgates in expressways.
“Our common vision for the future is to bring tolling technology in the country to the modern age,” he explained.
But before this, operators need to have an interoperable toll collection system in the country.
Already, all of MPTC's expressways are prepared for both cashless and cash payments.
The transition from cash to cashless transactions was a huge effort, the MPTC President acknowledged.
“It involved a massive and comprehensive undertaking since 1.2 million RFID stickers had to be installed in a span of less than four months. “
MPTC’s tollway network opened 283 RFID lanes in the toll plazas to the customers.
“We sincerely apologize to our customers and partners for the inconvenience in the run up to December 1, the first day of the implementation of the cashless contactless program," he went on.
After the “birth pains” during the first week of implementation, Franco said, traffic flow at the toll plazas have significantly improved”.
Additional system enhancements “are forthcoming this month and next month to make the RFID experience even more pleasant".
After all is said and done, MPTC is government’s partner in building and modernizing the transport infrastructure in the Philippines, having invested P180 billion in expressways todate.