The number of vehicles with Autosweep Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags have doubled to 2.7 million todate and still increasing, San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Wednesday, (Feb. 24) announced.
From 2015 to 2019, motorists with RFID tags numbered 1.3 million, by comparison.
“More and more people are realizing the benefits of cashless transactions along our toll roads especially in this pandemic," noted SMC president Ramon S. Ang.
"It saves motorists time and money as it cuts travel time and reduces fuel consumption. Apart from that, it helps in improving air quality along our road systems,” he added.
Earlier, SMC reported that use of electronic toll collection at its expressways have increased to 84.9 per cent despite the continuing availability of cash lanes.
SMC expects the number to increase further, even after government deferred the full implementation of cashless toll collection along expressways, originally set for January 11.
SMC operates the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR), South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Skyway System, NAIA Expressway, and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway.
Last year, transport authorities required toll operators to transition to fully cashless transactions as a safety measure to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
“Our roving caravans continue to go from village to village to install RFID stickers while our 160 installations sites are still available to motorists," according to Ang.
This year, in less than just two months, 304,571 stickers have already been issued by the company to various motorists in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.