Interoperability of expressways on track

The government targets to fully implement the toll interoperability collection in the country by next year, according to the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB).

Under the toll interoperability collection system, motorists get to use a single electronic tag that is readable in all expressways in the country, making cashless toll payment convenient.

Abraham Sales, TRB executive director, said the agency is working with Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) and San Miguel Corp. (SMC) to make adjustments in their systems in order to comply with the integrated toll collection system, hopefully by 2021.

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“By 2021, hopefully, we can attain the implementation of the phase 1 and 2… We are pushing SMC to implement (interoperability) for the TPLEx (Tarlac-Pangasinan-La-Union expressway) portion,” Sales said at MPTC’s virtual briefing on its cashless toll system held recently.

MPTC has proposed the implementation of two phases to achieve full interoperability in the country.

Under phase 1, the Autosweep tags issued by the San Miguel Group for the Skyway, South Luzon expressway (SLEx), STAR Tollway, TPLEx, Ninoy Aquino International Airport expressway (NAIAx) and the Muntinlupa-Cavite expressway (MCX) will be readable at the Easytrip System on the North Luzon expressway (NLEx), Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway (SCTEx), Cavite expressway (Cavitex), C5 Southlink and Cavite-Laguna expressway (Calax) using two accounts.

For phase 2 of the toll interoperability program, Easytrip RFID tags issued by the Metro Pacific Group for the NLEx SCTEx, Cavitex, C-5 Southlink and Calax shall soon be readable at the Autosweep System or at the Skyway, SLEx, STAR Tollway, TPLEx, NAIAx and MCX using two accounts.

MPTC said it is ready to comply with the DOTr’s mandate to fully transition to the electronic toll collection system by November this year, as the toll lanes along its expressway network are undergoing progressive conversion to make them RFID-enabled.

Roberto Bontia, MPT South Corp. president and general manager, disclosed that some segments of the MPTC expressways have gradually implemented the progressive conversion drive.

“Around 75 percent of these lanes are already RFID-enabled,” he said.

Last month, the DOTr issued an order requiring all the lanes of all toll operators to have electronic toll collection by November 2.

DOTr mobilized the TRB, LTO and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to ensure the smooth transition from the cash system to the RFID-enabled cashless transactions.

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