Motorists will soon experience barrierless toll gates on all expressways in Luzon once the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) implements the full cashless transactions by June or July this year.
TRB Executive Director Alvin Carullo said they have already started conducting dry-runs for what he calls interoperability of the existing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) being used by the Metro Pacific Toll Corporation and the San Miguel Corporation in September last year and these have resulted in positive outcome.
“We have been conducting dry-runs and series of meetings on this and the target is the simultaneous implementation by June or July (this year) of full cashless and interoperability of all our toll operators,” said Carullo in an interview.
This means that there will be no toll booth that will entertain cash transactions for passing motor vehicles by that time in all expressways, according to Carullo.
The full cashless transactions, according to Carullo, will be complemented by another project which is to remove all the barriers in all toll booths of expressways to ensure a free flow of vehicles.
In removing barriers in toll gates, Carullo said the move is to prevent instances of traffic build-up especially during long weekends and holidays when the volume of vehicles using the expressways is high.
He said final touches are now being done for the automatic charging by RFID monitors in all toll booths.
One Wallet, One RFID
Currently, there are two RFID systems being used: the Autosweep RFID and the Easytrip RFID.
The Easytrip is for North Luzon Expressway, Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), Cavitex, Cavite-Laguna Expressway (CALAX) and C5 link while the RFID for TPLEX (Talac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway), SLEX (South Luzon Expressway), NAIX (NAIA Expressway), MCX (Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway, STAR Toll (Southern Tagalog Arterial Roa) ACTEX (Alabang, Calamba, Sto. Tomas Expressway) and the Skyway is Autosweep.
Carullo explained that the One Wallet, One RFID system means that there will be a uniform RFID system that will be used for all expressways.
“Motorists will have an account and one RFID tag and this means that the loading for this RFID will only be done once, unlike the current system that requires loading of two accounts,” said Carullo.
“We are now doing our best to ensure that the enrollment for One RFID is done online so that we could prevent instances of long queues for installation. What’s the use of using this system if we cannot make the registration comfortable to the motorists,” he added.
Challenges
The dry-run conducted started in NLEX, the Skyway and the SLEX, according to Carullo.
So far, they have not monitored any major issues except that they need to assign new codes for every toll plaza since the RFID readers usually do not work if they detected similar numbers in the code—which cropped up when the dry-run for Autosweep and Eastrip interoperability was done.
Carullo said IT experts are now overhauling the code system for the interoperability operation of the two RFIDs.
Another challenge that delayed the implementation of the full cashless and interoperability, according to Carullo, is that there are at least 19 toll plazas at the side of the San Miguel Corporation that need to comply with the system.
And finally, he said the CAVITEX is currently doing a migration to the new system that would allow interoperability of two RFID systems.
“We expect CAVITEX to finish the migration by March 31 this year, so this is in time for our target of full implementation bhy June or July,” said Carullo.
High penetration rate
The TRB has long pushed for full cashless transactions in all expressways.
While cashless transactions are now widely used, there is an addendum in the TRB Board Resolution that designates one booth for cash transactions in all toll plazas.
Carullo said that once the dry-run for cashless and interoperability is successful, they will recommend the removal of that addendum in order to implement the full cashless transactions in all toll booths.
He also explained that there is a current 88 percent to 90 percent penetration rate among motorists, meaning, these are the motorists who are either willing or have already installed RFIDs.
“The current challenge is to convince the remaining 10 percent to install RFIDs so we are urging toll operators to step up their marketing strategy to convince these people to avail of this system,” said Carullo.
“Because once all these programs are implemented, everything will be comfortable to all motorists as far as the use of expressways is concerned,” he added.