A unit of the San Miguel Group, South Luzon Tollway Corp, is spending more than P500 million to upgrade the facilities at the 51-kilometer toll road.

South Luzon Tollway Corp. (SLTC), a subsidiary of the San Miguel Group, is hiking its capital expenditures (capex) by P557 million to support the expansion of its businesses.

SLTC said in a regulatory filing to the Philippine Dealing Exchange on Thursday that its board of directors approved the amount that will be used to supplement the additional finances for the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx).

SLEx is a 51-kilometer (km) toll road running from Alabang in Muntinlupa up to Calamba in Laguna. It is being subjected for expansion in different contracts under a public-private partnership.

The first expansion includes the repair and widening of the 1.2-km. Alabang Viaduct to improve volume capacity from the current six lanes to eight.

Meanwhile, the second expansion entails the rehabilitation and widening of the existing 15-km. expressway from Filinvest to Sta. Rosa, Laguna to eight lanes from only four at present; and the rehabilitation and widening of the existing 12-kilometer expressway from Sta. Rosa to Calamba from four lanes to six.

The third project involves a new 7.6-km, four-lane expressway from Calamba to Sto. Tomas in Batangas. It will also link to the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road, which currently services motorists passing through Lipa City and is being extended to Batangas City.

SLTC also in March, broke ground for the P13.1-billion, 66.74-km SLEX-Toll Road 4 (TR-4), from Sto. Tomas to Barangay Mayao in Quezon province. It is expected to cut travel time to only 45 minutes from the usual three hours.

In 2006, the government awarded SLTC of a 30-year concession period to finance, construct and design the toll road.