The San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Infrastructure waived the toll fees for around 84,000 motorists affected by the traffic jams in parts of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Skyway, NAIAX (NAIA Expressway) and the STAR (Southern Tagalog Arterial Road) Tollway on Thursday, Nov. 17.
The SMC Infrastructure issued a statement apologizing to all motorists affected by traffic jams caused by a momentary network outage in their electronic toll collection (ETC) system.
“We apologize for the inconvenience, and ask of our motorists’ understanding, as we work to ensure that we deliver the same high level of efficiency and reliability they have come to expect from us,” it said.
According to SMC Infrastructure, its IT teams traced the source of the downtime to a cut in the fiber optic network.
They are still determining the root cause of the damage, but there are indications that a major vehicular accident may have contributed to the situation.
The firm said additional manpower was deployed to provide support to motorists and ease traffic congestion.
The affected toll plazas were opened and waived toll fees for around 84,000 vehicles that passed through the expressways from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Nov. 17.
Motorists whose ETC accounts were deducted upon entry will receive electronic refunds in their Autosweep accounts, according to SMC’s infrastructure arm.
“While the system was restored around 9 a.m., we decided to keep barriers at toll plazas up, to enable all affected motorists to pass through for free,” it added.