New DOTr chief defers cashless tollway payments
BACK IN GOV’T Vivencio Dizon takes his oath of office before President Marcos as the new secretary of the Department of Transportation on Friday. —PCO PHOTO
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) is hitting the brakes on the implementation of cashless toll collection after its new chief ordered a suspension to allow a further review of the program, which he described as “antipoor.”
At a press briefing in Malacañang on Friday after taking his oath of office before President Marcos, Transportation Secretary Vivencio Dizon said he had instructed the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) to halt the program that was originally scheduled to resume on March 15.
He said he would like to coordinate again with tollway operators Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. and San Miguel Corp. to check the readiness of the toll plaza infrastructure, as he wanted to make sure that all toll barriers were working and all the scanners could properly read radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers.
The contactless payment scheme, he believed, should be more efficient, or even “perfect,” before it is fully implemented.
Dizon also expressed reservation about the initiative that he deemed as “antipoor,” noting that not all motorists have the financial capability to maintain a certain level of RFID load balance.
Article continues after this advertisement“We’re not going cashless in the foreseeable future,” he said. “Maybe in time, if the system is already perfect … But right now, I don’t believe in it.”
Article continues after this advertisementThe cashless collection policy was suspended in September last year due to technical issues and to give motorists enough time to adjust to the new system.
The Inquirer reached out to the TRB for comments on Dizon’s directive but had yet to receive a response as of Friday afternoon.
Under the cashless/contactless transactions program, all vehicles passing through expressways must be equipped with RFID to settle their toll fees digitally or else the drivers will be penalized.
Violators will be fined P1,000 for the first offense, P2,000 for the second, and P2,500 for each subsequent offense.
Problems
In implementing this scheme, the DOTr, TRB and Land Transportation Office directed tollway operators and RFID service providers to establish more RFID installation sites and provide several modes of loading the motorists’ account balances.
According to regulators, the installation of RFID stickers is free and no maintaining balance is required.
Dizon recalled that the program’s initial rollout a few years ago caused traffic jams at toll plazas due to technical glitches. Motorists then, he said, were also unaware of the cashless payment policy.
He said he wanted assurance from toll operators that the contactless payment system would be more efficient before going totally cashless on tollways.
“Are the barriers all working? Are the RFID readers working? Because if we still have problems like that and our system is far from perfect, it might not be the time for us to suddenly go cashless,” Dizon said.
Also, he said that many Filipino motorists were already struggling to top up their accounts regularly or sufficiently because of tight budgets.
“My personal opinion—and I’ve communicated this already with the TRB—is that having a cashless system is not propoor. It is antipoor,” Dizon said.
“How about our countrymen who are pinching pennies? They can’t load as much or as frequently. What if they forget to top up and they have a negative or zero balance? Now that we’re cashless, what can he do? It will just be a burden to the motorist. There has to be a change of mindset,” Dizon said.
He added: “I understand the need to regulate, I really do. But the need to regulate should not result in making the lives of people difficult. Peoples’ lives should be getting better, not harder. This cashless payment will be a burden for now so I don’t believe in it.”
The country’s largest umbrella group of exporters said the cashless toll collection was not only “extortionary” and antipoor, but also costly and cumbersome.
Old technology
“We do not understand why we continue to use the [RFID] when this is an old technology which has been replaced in favor of more efficient systems in countries including our neighbors Singapore and Hong Kong,” the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) said in a Feb. 20 letter to President Marcos.
“Our operators should instead consider the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera, for example, which is already available from providers in the Philippines,” it said.
Using ANPR technology may later on be linked to electronic payments, such as credit or debit cards or similar systems, it said. “By moving to this platform, the burden of advancing deposits that is being done under the RFID will also be addressed,” Philexport said.
Transferable cards
Philexport also suggested the issuance of cards that are transferable to other vehicles and valid in all tollways regardless of the operator.
This, it said, would facilitate easier compliance and lessen the amount that may have to be deposited.
“The issue of compatibility of systems should be the responsibility of the operators and should not be passed on to motorists,” the exporters group said.
Philexport also urged the government to maintain the dedicated cash lanes in all tollways as assistance to ordinary motorists.
“This should not disrupt the RFID lane traffic flow since these are also exclusive to RFID users. As a matter of fact, operators should even add cash lanes depending on the volume of cars that pass through their [tollways] daily and this will not cost them much,” it said. —WITH A REPORT FROM ALDEN M. MONZON
