Dream on
The current system of maintaining two accounts to achieve interoperability is impractical and is an excuse for the massive delay in the project.
Daily TribuneThe current system of maintaining two accounts to achieve interoperability is impractical and is an excuse for the massive delay in the project.
Toll operators must keep their commitments in the long-delayed program for a unified automated toll system by reading rival systems' radio frequency identification or RFID.
The Toll Regulatory Board had set in June next year the implementation of the dream of motorists to have just one efficient RFID for all tollways that open the barrier before approaching the toll gate, the way that most of the seamless systems in the country's neighbors run.
SMC's Autosweep RFIDs are being billed as readable at NLEX toll gates, like EasyTrip RFIDs of the Metro Pacific group at SLEX and the Metro Manila Skyway. Still, motorists must go through the hassle of registering with each system.
In AutoSweep's case, a new dual ID is issued that reads both of the toll payment systems.
According to a road user advocate, the program was held up by each of the rival operators, blaming each other for using what they claimed as outdated systems that make it hard to synchronize both.
Most motorists view as insane the need to register two accounts and use two tags to pass through both systems' toll gates since it is easier to keep two stickers and avoid all the registration ordeal.
The real solution is a single unified system using a single electronic ticket.
Ilocos Norte 1st district Rep. Sandro Marcos and some of his colleagues in the House of Representatives are getting impatient at the snail-paced project, which has been delayed by more than five years.
House Resolution 159 said the delay in implementing the Toll Interoperability Project punishes motorists.
The project started in 2017, but the TRB and the operators blame the pandemic for pushing back its implementation.
Previously, an 11 January 2021 deadline was set for all private and public vehicles to have RFID stickers.
Even taxicabs currently do not have electronic passes that deny commuters the benefit of using the expressways.
Since there are only two toll operators, users of the tollways are asking what's holding both up, resulting in the project stagnating for five years.
No wonder long queues form at the payment plazas since the systems being used have not been upgraded since before the pandemic following the excuses of the operators and the TRB.
Marcos said the government's job is to provide motorists with simple, fast, and convenient payment at toll booths, especially since cashless or no-contact transactions have become the norm in all modern nations.
The current system of maintaining two accounts to achieve interoperability is impractical and is an excuse for the massive delay in the project.
For one, how will motorists know which toll wallets are charged when they use the expressway? They may have to check the balances of both the EasyTrip and Autosweep accounts and make extrapolations to find out.
Thus, instead of convenience, frequent users of toll roads are cursed to forever check and compare the remaining balance of their two accounts.
Also, maintaining an amount in the accounts and remembering that both have enough credits to pass through the toll gates is a hassle.
With all such inconveniences in using two RFID cards, it would be easier to pay cash for most motorists who reason that they will have to encounter the same long queues whether they have electronic cards or not.
There is again that promise to have the unified system up by June next year.
Motorists' recourse is only to keep their fingers crossed.
